Your First Playthrough

[stranger]

Seems to me like there's an issue with Hisao overreacting to the player's inputs. I got Emi too, because I expected him to just try a little harder on the track, not try to kill himself. I also got Kenji accidentally the second time, because I tried to get him to gracefully drop the subject of his defective heart with Lilly, not run off and sulk like a little twat.

[CindehQ]

lol, like everyone else I got Emi. All because of that one defining moment.

Damn Emi, stop being so clingy, girl. Make him come to you.

In response to Mercutio, yeah I was confused when I got Emi's ending too. I kind of expected to have some alone time with the girl, but I ended up with Emi and Rin as a bit of third wheel. Not that I minded, I liked Rin better anyhow.

[U.T. Raptor]

LOL MANLY PICNIC

I was trying for the Hanako route, but I sided against Lilly in Cold War and ended up on Rin's route, then I declined the last choice and got "brb, falling to my death". Then I went back (I'd saved at the aforementioned choice) to get the Rin ending...

Seems to me like there's an issue with Hisao overreacting to the player's inputs. I got Emi too, because I expected him to just try a little harder on the track, not try to kill himself. I also got Kenji accidentally the second time, because I tried to get him to gracefully drop the subject of his defective heart with Lilly, not run off and sulk like a little twat.

On the same note, when I chose the "I was sure having fun at the Nurse's Office" option during Slow Recovery (during a much later playthrough), I was expecting Hisao to be sarcastic. I was not expecting him to tell Misha and Shizune to essentially fuck off and never talk to him again...

[abscess]

Seems to me like there's an issue with Hisao overreacting to the player's inputs. I got Emi too, because I expected him to just try a little harder on the track, not try to kill himself. I also got Kenji accidentally the second time, because I tried to get him to gracefully drop the subject of his defective heart with Lilly, not run off and sulk like a little twat.

On the same note, when I chose the "I was sure having fun at the Nurse's Office" option during Slow Recovery (during a much later playthrough), I was expecting Hisao to be sarcastic. I was not expecting him to tell Misha and Shizune to essentially fuck off and never talk to him again...

Yeeh.... that was pretty much why I got the manly picnic like six times or so...

[SirMax]

Seems to me like there's an issue with Hisao overreacting to the player's inputs. I got Emi too, because I expected him to just try a little harder on the track, not try to kill himself. I also got Kenji accidentally the second time, because I tried to get him to gracefully drop the subject of his defective heart with Lilly, not run off and sulk like a little twat.

On the same note, when I chose the "I was sure having fun at the Nurse's Office" option during Slow Recovery (during a much later playthrough), I was expecting Hisao to be sarcastic. I was not expecting him to tell Misha and Shizune to essentially fuck off and never talk to him again...

It's not so much overreacting as it is that there's only a very small set of questions, and then a LOT of events come out of them, and many of the choices are rather neutrally phrased. You seem to more affect his mindset right before he makes a choice than actually make a choice. Like, rather than tell him whether to run an extra lap or not, either put him in a mood to give it all he's got or a mood to be careful.

[Seyren]

at first i don't understand how to play KS.... *blush*
but when i choosing the quest i ended with emi....

[Lawls]

Yeah got Ibarazaki trying to get Tezuka "sign".

Seems to me like there's an issue with Hisao overreacting to the player's inputs. I got Emi too, because I expected him to just try a little harder on the track, not try to kill himself. I also got Kenji accidentally the second time, because I tried to get him to gracefully drop the subject of his defective heart with Lilly, not run off and sulk like a little twat.

same I didn't know "I'm fine" = RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

[Squeezy]

Yeah, I ended up with Emi. Made all the choices I would have done personally, not going for any girl in particular (why can't I have a harem? ). I kinda had a thing for Shizune, but that didn't go too well after I disapproved of her bitching against Lilly. I really like Emi though, so I was happy with the ending. It might be true that it's too easy to get her path, depends on so little etc, but that's just how life is, right? ^_^

[Fatalis]

I was going for Shizune, but I made that one decision on the track. BAM! Emi's path.

[G0t0]

On my first playthrough I got Shizune.

I figured early on that her manipulative bitchiness was just her trying to spend time with me. So I played along with it figuring that if I didn't I would get the bad "no girl" ending.

Lucky me that my favorite girl was also my first.

[Aura]

Despite the relatively small sample set, the numbers seem to indicate that I pulled off almost exactly what I wanted with the scenario design. This is/was a useful thread.

[Caesius]

Despite the relatively small sample set, the numbers seem to indicate that I pulled off almost exactly what I wanted with the scenario design. This is/was a useful thread.

Oh I get it. It's like Starfox 64 where if you're real shitty you end up with the green route, if you're awesome you get the red route, and if you're mediocre you get the yellow route! And if you really suck you die before you even get to Venom and just barely make the High Scores.


...You're a real dick, you know that?

[Aura]

Nah, that'd mean I make some assumptions about the playerbase, or that we value some girls above others.

Basically I figured the playerbase, on average, will act like a weighted coin on each choice. Problem is I could only make educated guesses about how the coin is weighted, but the results in this thread more or less prove that my guesses were pretty accurate. At least it's enough for me since the actual result would be all right even if it turned out I was wrong.

[G3n0c1de]

On my first playthrough, I was immediately drawn to Shizune because of her personality. I went through the game picking the Shizune-correct choices. And then comes the second day of exercise with Emi. As a track runner myself, I took a liking to Emi, so I also picked Emi-positive choices, hoping to remain friends with her while my main objective remained Shizune. I took Emi up on her challenge and was surprised to have a mild heart attack, at this point I wondered if I was locked into Emi's path or not. Afterward I returned to Shizune and Misha. Here is where mistakes were made. Misha pressed for information on my previous whereabouts. I read through the choices and thought that the 'Mind your own business' one was off-putting. I also wanted to reveal Hisao's condition to the two of them for a while now (something I would later learn is IMPOSSIBLE), so telling them that I was in the nurses office would probably lead to that. It seemed like a good idea at the time, hell, Rin and Emi knew about it at this point... But his response had a lethal dose of sarcasm that I didn't pick up on when I first read it. And so I watched in horror as Shizune's path was obliterated, and I couldn't do a thing about it. And at that point I still felt that I could some how make reparations with the two of them. With no other options to take, I had lunch with Emi and Rin on the roof. And then on the day of the festival... I hung out with Kenji. Hindsight (and a replay) would show me that even if you choose not to race Emi, you are NOT supposed to let Misha/Shizune have any information about the nature of your condition. The choices are Make them be patient about it/Explode at them.

[Caesius]

Hindsight (and a replay) would show me that even if you choose not to race Emi, you are NOT supposed to let Misha/Shizune have any information about the nature of your condition. The choices are Make them be patient about it/Explode at them.

This seems to be a consequence of Hisao having different personalities depending on who he "picks." Apparently, if you go on Shizune's path (choosing not to run with Emi, choosing "Maybe" for the nurse health choice), Hisao is in denial of his condition and won't tell Misha and Shizune why he's a cripple even when he gets tired out from throwing balls. But if he goes on Emi's path he's forced to come to terms with his limits, and on Lilly's path he calmly reveals his condition to Lilly and Rin when they're walking back to Yamaku -- either because he's comfortable with them knowing it, or because he gets a different personality from going after Lilly and Rin, but probably both. On Hanako's path I don't recall him revealing his condition, but if he did (or when he does in the future), it will probably only serve to have Hanako and Hisao support each other and come to terms with their respective conditions, rather than Hisao fixin' her up or Emi fixin' up Hisao.

I guess what Aura wanted to do with the "Go for it" choice was have the player realize Hisao's limits, but still know that Hisao wouldn't be comfortable letting just anyone know his condition -- so Emi's path will definitely put a lot of emphasis on Hisao's condition, whereas if there's any focus on Emi's "disability" at all it will probably only deal with the history and how she managed to come to terms with it. Shizune's path, on the other hand, is for the "stubborn" Hisao, who refuses to acknowledge his condition. Then there's the Kenji bad end, for the "angry" Hisao who is in fact so devastated by his condition that it causes him to push everyone away, leaving him alone and broken (literally).

Unfortunately, even if statistically the results indicate that Aura had achieved what he had intended, in a practical sense the options would often not correspond to how the player would expect Hisao to react. The choices themselves aren't necessarily wrong, but are only wrong in the sense of how the writer of that scene interpreted the choice and how Hisao reacts to or executes the choice, which is the cause of the many "WTF?" reactions from players.

From the way Act 1 went, I imagine it will be difficult for different players to make correct choices on different paths depending on the player's own personality and the personality that is (supposed to be) ascribed to Hisao on that particular path. To make the right choices on the paths where Hisao's personality differs from the player's will require the player to determine Hisao's personality, with any errors in their interpretation of "X's path Hisao" resulting in "wrong" decisions which in turn lead to bad or lesser endings.