luv wave, ...I may write about it more than I thought

So, I reached the event and felt I absolutely had to post about it! In a nutshell, luv wave is a cyberpunk detective story where you play Mikogami Kaoru, a secret agent for the Japanese governement whose main missions are... assassinations. Anyway, so, after Kaoru's girlfriend, Yuri, is killed in one of her missions "for him" (after which Kaoru learns that she was a triple agent, working as a freelancer cracker [what he knew of her] only as a cover, but actually a secret agent in the same service as his, as well as a secret agent for China, as well as an agent of one of the biggest criminal organizations in the world [and a current enemy of their service]), and Kaoru recovers from a one-week BSOD, his partner, Alice (who regularly proclaims during the game how much Kaoru is one of the most important person in her life, and how much she likes him --or may even has a crush on him), takes him to several locations where Yuri last took her, whilst giving her important information about their current mission. There, amongst other, she informs him she understands what the motivations of the "big bad" (let's call her that way, even though it's pretty clear she was merely a pawn in the big game) were, which was to surpass mankind and reach godhood, and understands her feelings about the matter. She still doesn't quite understand completely how she planned (past tense because they killed the "big bad" in a recent event) to achieve that, though, for she still lacks a "something" that Yuri told her Kaoru helds inside him. Then...



...she takes him to the scrapyard over the sea and shoots him. Eleven times. Ufufufufufu~ It was such an ideal date~ Going to different romantic locations, talking about romantic matters such as the recent death of your former girlfriend, the end of the world as we know it, and the wish to surpass mankind and reach godhood, and ending in a scrapyard (which is, in many ways, a graveyard after all --and I love walking in graveyards) where the cute girl who loves you so much eventually kills you~ So lovely~ I felt in love with Alice when I extracted the game's media files but, now that I got the whole context for the scene, I love her even more~
ufufufufufufufufufufufufufufufufufUFUFUFUFUFUFUFUFUFUFUFUFUFUFUFUFUFUFUFUFUFU~
Alas, you cannot find such an adorable girl IRL.

(Of course, as the protagonist muses as he's shot to death, she may not have taken him to the scrapyard only for the romantic view but also so that there's no witness around and she'll be able to easily hide his corpse afterwards but...)

Lain-sama, I got one ending and... I love this game.
Let's see... This game has eight female characters. In the route I got, five die. That's a good score! Also, when the plot's background is revealed in the end, we found out that the protagonist was pretty much manipulated by EVERYONE he knew! Including his commanding officer and colleague agent... and probably even the person he trusts most and to whom he asks advices. And I thought his girlfriend was fucked up, because she was a triple agent! OTOH, pretty much everyone as manipulating the others in this game so heh.
As for the first ending I got, if it wasn't clear from my comments about the game, it's laincursed depressive and bleak!
Also, Mayumi/Alice is brokenso pitifulfucked upinsane?adorable. I would regret I couldn't save her (in fact... I actually killed both of her. Literally) if that wouldn't have made her more tragic, the story more beautiful and the ending more depressive.

OTOH, the game was SOOOOOO buggy it was a pain to play at times. No wonder it gets such an average score at Erogamescape!

My bad: my memories were incorrect. Whilst several commented about the bugs, luv wave gets nonetheless a median score of 75 and a mean score of 73, out of about 75 scores, which is way above average! Not that I care much about the Erogamescape scores but it's pleasant to see people agreeing with you about how good a game is.
But then, if you're into cyberpunk stuff, luv wave has a good plot, good characters, action, and usual cyberpunk pseudo-science, and the usual cyberpunk themes of humans vs. artificial humans (e.g. robots), the Web able to develop an awareness/people sending their awareness on the Web, wish for people to surpass mankind through the Web, mega-corporations, countries' conspirations, etc.
Plus Alice/Mayumi, of course.

This post has been edited by Wavehawk on Jun 11 2012, 04:10 AM

Uh? Sorry, Wave-kun, but I didn't get the joke.

What Alice did. It made me go....AAAAUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH

...put it this way. Picture that image as ME, playign the game, and coming to that scene.

This post has been edited by Wavehawk on Jun 11 2012, 04:22 AM

But you're not black...

But you don't read Japanese...

But I don't see the hearts coming from the guy...

OTOH, if you meant that she made you fall in love with her through this ideal date then, well, I do agree she's adorable~

ERGH.

It's amusing: my first comment made you turn black whilst my second made you turn green. Shall I try a third time?

See? (NSFW, though not porn either... or mayhap not in the sexual meaning you may think it is.) Totally our mutual kind of girl. Or at least mine. And Kanako's. And mayhap cab's. And mayhap Ranw... well, OK, mayhap not, though you can never know what kind of dark desires might lie in the darkness of one's heart~

In the grim darkness of the far future...

girls don't wear pants.

Blue. Third time, it's blue. ESPECIALLY after seeing that link pic.

So, I got the four Mayumi/Alice endings, two being kinda cynical and depressing, one that was debatable whether it was good or not, and one that could probably be seen as good (and probably "happy" in some way, though I guess it's debatable). So far, I think I like the game and its plot. Even though the choices leading to the different endings only made a difference in the very end, it was nonetheless interesting to replay the game at least once. Indeed, since the game is by large a cyberpunk conspiration/detective story, many hints and pieces about the bigger picture are thrown out in the course of the story, as foreshadowed in the very beginning, when, discussing about a matter that wasn't supposed, back then, to be related to the case at hand, Kaoru answered that the matter was like a huge puzzle, for which there were too little, unrelated, pieces, in order to make it. With a replay, many tiny details (sentences said by some characters that seem cryptic at the time, some behaviours or reactions, etc.) make suddenly perfect sense, as you read them with the knowledge of the relationship each character had with the other and the whole plot.
Another point for which I liked the story, mayhap, is that it was a story in which, as a whole, everyone lost. Well, most main protagonists die anyway, so it was a given but... The first apparent antagonist didn't really exist anyway, an ally revealed (realized?) her life of lies and façades and was killed, Kaoru's love interest decided to leave behind her multiple secret agent life to marry and was killed, the apparent mastermind became a vegetable, the second apparent mastermind was killed, Mayumi was killed ten years ago and only transcended death as a memory of her past feelings for Kaoru, Alice's desire for humanity led to her 'self' being destroyed and Kaoru was left with the feeling he brought death to the three women who fell in love with him (which is, in fact, quite true).
Though Alice may be the cutest character, I think my favourite may be Mayumi, because she's the most tragicinteresting. She was so broken, pitiable and desperate, so desperate she became obsessed and manipulative with the idea of transcending herself, in order to be with Kaoru and get loved by him. She was happy to be by his sides merely for the fact he called her by her name and she called him the same, what for her was a confirmation of her existence, a proof of her existence, because in her eyes that confirmed she existed for him, he existed for her, thus they both existed. Because, as she said once, aside from him, "no one considered her as a human being, nor called her by a name, as she was to them similar to an object." Yet, at the same time, even though she was in the end the factor behind everything that took place in the story, every plot, every crime, every insanity, all happening out of her own will and control, and all because of her wish, everything ended so... useless, probably only adding to her pitiful nature. She was able to transcend death, but only as a memory of her love for Kaoru, as a voice to assert him of its neverending nature, as an echo repeating the same words, unable to even feel his presence. The worst being being realizing that, yet unable to stop herself to try, as well as realizing that Kaoru did probably not reciprocate her feelings.

Ironically, nothing would have happened if Mayumi didn't fall in love with Kaoru, as she wouldn't have felt hope, wouldn't have found a reason to her existence (to get noticed by Kaoru and loved by him), thus fully realize its tragedy. All of this for nothing.

Once you've completed all the "human eyes" routes (all being identical but for the endings, that are variations of each other), you're able to play the "computer eyes" route, that is the game's background story from Mayumi's POV. Fucking laincursed Swatty-sama!!!! Mayumi, I'd say you really need a hug, except that it'd be useless it doesn't come from Kaoru, since he truly meant your whole existence, and you lived and dedicated it to him, and falling in love with him and seeking for his love was truly your existence's meaning. At least to you. I'll probably add you to my hall of favourite girls.
Making the 7th ending where Kaoru was given the possibility to set right what went wrong in his past an even worse ending since it ended just before he answered. Made me want to mallet him up and until he confessed to you, even more since it were his true feelings and he just didn't say them because of... well, many reasons.

Anyway, excellent game. I was a bit annoyed by the voice bugs (less by the save bug) and by the outdated GUI, but then, it's my fault for playing such old games now...
8. The story may deserve a 8.5 but, in the end, you only have one big story and route (with different very minor ending variations) and the game has annoying bugs. That being said, Meguri, hitohira also was pretty much only one route with slight variations on a few events and the endings but let's say that, even combined, Mayumi and Alice weren't as awesome as Korisu was~

P.S. Wave, I obviously posted the pictures (and animated scene) out of context. In context, they're probably not what you think they are. Or, rather, they're justified. Sorta.