What's up, RMers?

[Remi-chan]

Eddy: Ed... why is your shield strapped to your butt!?
Ed: For protection!
Eddy: Ergh! it goes on your arm!

Is all I can think of when I see that.

So. in some Fantasia news, I want to talk about...
Disk 3: Thousandfold Namesake Kaleidoscope
This is the final portion of the game before the end game, and the final five icons will be fought with and recruited.

These are as follows:
Mad E. Lin

Zardari Zitei

Mira Crowspeaker

Esperia Frostwhisper

Fyori Felicee

Believe it or not, the twist boss is not Fyori or Esperia, they are kinda twisty, but the real twist bost is probably best given away by the acts name.

Mira and Mad E. Lin have no DENUI. Mad is the daughter of the Queen of Shadows, who is Yi's friend, so likely she never had one. Mira openly admits to entering her own mind and killing hers without regret.

Zardari has the Archangel Raphiel, Esperia the Archangel Azreal and Fyori the Archangel Jopheline (Jophiel).

the finale of this Disk will be with M.F. Lazarus, and will be only one of two main story battles prior to endgame where you can control Sacreblu as another party member and not just her second wind status.

Speaking of, I wanna talk about Sacreblu. In spoilers though for those who aren't interested.

Making a Goddess Lovable

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Sacreblu has been challenging to write, she's mostly a happy go lucky character but has her serious moments, and those couple times where she becomes scary and the tone shifts, which is an indication that yeah, she's a goddess of love now, but she sure as hell wasn't always this way!

This disk is when the spotlight shifts to her, Lumi gets Disk 1, Koko and Lilac got disk 2, Sacreblu gets her turn in Disk 3.

She's easily one of the biggest factors of movement not just in Fantasia, but in my games generally, except for PFC where she didn't have any input.

In Menagerie, she's one of the people responsible for the Menagerie and what they achieve, this is the best idea we have of how she was as Blu, cold and taciturn... she had a more fun side, but it only really showed around her fellow aspects.  She tries to involve herself as little as possible due ot social anxiety, even skipping out entirely until her daughter gives her next to no choice.

In intelligence, she starts out as a secondary antagonist before reforming and choosing to do right by mortals, this is how she becomes Sacreblu. She annihilates the Mamix which is what alerts the Twins that something big is going on. This is also the precise moment she becomes a Ruler.

For those who don't know, a "Ruler" is one who has used their trait in order to sin to such a degree they've hit Sin power ten. genocides of an entire race can honestly give no sin power depending on their importance to the cosmos. Sacreblu thought she was doing a good thing, but as she knows now, she did something the cosmos would see as an absolute atrocity.

if she had only paused the cycle of Origination indefinitely, it's unlike it would have been so severe. But yeah, she did an oops! Rulers, generally speaking, are very powerful people, both in terms of power or prestige, and often both. It takes a lot of power to be able to even gain a single point of sin power. So there aren't many of them. Those who become Serazai and Serazen are typically rulers. Esperia, Fyori, Tristy and Svoli are under the registrar. All of the children of calamity are rulers, but their rules are messed up due to Xaela editing the system's code to consider them exceptions.

I should mention that Sacreblu's act would have granted her basically an absurd amount if it didn't cap out at ten, The video I posted a while back that goes into Atonement and Atonement's end with Esperia explains that nicely.

Sacreblu being a ruler isn't all that surprising given her history with being several punches too drunk and really, really cold.

She had Galaxia put to death because they might have posed a threat.

Good or bad, her impulsive nature is something that causes her to sin way beyond what you'd expect a goddess to.

So the balancing act of that ruthless cold side of her that is still around, and her more goofy playing around, as well as her moments of intelligence, which, she is good at doing, when she feels like doing it.

She is not very good at the knowledge side of things, admitting that she only discovered she had boobs mere weeks ago to a new-old friend.

And this is the disk where her Aarc which started basically when you first met her, and especially so in the optional events in Disk one with her and during the events in Disk 2 where you are going to find Spooky, to finally explode in the finale.

In all of it, it's hard to tell what her idea of love is. The funny thing is, she has no idea! Why she has none is because naturally, magic is her thing, Love is Lilith's trait which she inherited. But because of the disconnect between Lilith and Sacreblu (thanks Eve) she's not been able to really get to understand it. So she goes with the only love she really knows, either sisterly love, or love that is conditional, like she has shown Fyori most of her life.

So it's when she is facing Azrael, the Archangel using Esperia's body like a parasite while Fyori pleads her to save Esperia, that finally drives her to question what she is doing wrong.

Funnily enough, she's just overthinking shit, which is ENTIRELY in character for her. She actually legit thinks love is like trading. That its based purely on conditional and that loving just because you love someone is too simple. Surely there's more to it than that?

Yeah, that's it. Her being so emotionally stupid that she only after a couple decades of wearing the Goddess of Love title does she actually realize what love is fully.

It's obvious that she does kind of get it, but more as a way to elevate people, and she'll say she loves them, even if they hate her, but its unclear if she understands why she does that.

If your head is now ass on the ground from doing all those mental gymnastic, well you now understand why Sacreblu is a difficult character to write. Gimmickry like discovering only now she has boobs is a fun moment, but it doesn't define her or her love, it's just a bit.

There needs to be actual meat to her. Everyone else so far is pretty well established, though helping this is that Sacreblu didn't have her own Disk to be introduced like Lumi, Lilac and Koko did.

There is meat to her, but its hard to grasp. The most recent iteration of Disk 2's ending and some of the conversations she has in Disk 2 are good at showing she has that meat, but Disk 3 will be the culmination.

So, not everything is set in stone yet, but here's the plans for Demo 3!

To the Sunless Expanse
A new Galaxy is unlocked where in the second and third icons of the disk are found. With Zardari being on Planet Terra and Mira being on her home world: Shale.

"Minor plot spoilers inside."

Both of these introductions scenes will be fairly involved, Mira's especially so, starting out at Noirpinot to find a means to curry her favor, since- she's an anarchistic godslayer with her moral beromiter always set to 'if it suits me'. So reasoning with her can be difficult. She's like if lord freeza had an animted crow skull on a stick.

So you visit Noirpinot to ask her wayward sister Dibella for help, which takes you on a journey through Shale to find mira, meeting the ghosts of all the people she slew in her rampage that would shatter the heavens.

On Terra you meet Kyoshi's old friends including the kid he was caretaker for prior to Lumi, Koko and Lilac. Zardari is being all inscrutable but thankfully this monkey king kid knows where he is.

On skies soar high: The truth lurks below.
Mad E. Lin will still have her gimmick of spontaneously shouting angrily about next to fucking nothing, but she'll have a lot more moments where she chills with you or is just not... that. You "encounter" her in a very fun way.

"Don't drink the Soda."

I should mention that her whole spontaneous loud yelling is something that won't be endearing all the time. it's a gimmick. I want to give her an actual personality

Rescuing Mad will unlock her optional event chain, and doing that will unlock the optional events on Zen Aneia. Same goes for Mira in regards to Shale and Noir Pinot, and Zardari for Terra.

Two suns to orbit their world.
Esperia and Fyori will respectively be at one of the colored suns. Esperia at Blue and Fyori at Pink. A fun bit of Trivia is that these two were in early concepts of the game, going to be the final antagonists, but that was scrapped because that was back before I'd had the joy of watching gravity falls which helped me really formulate the stakes for the plot.

The Goddess of Love finds her mojo!
The boss fight with Esperia is when Sacreblu gets her ENNUI empowerment, though she also gets a transformation and becomes a full time party member to cement her words in the game with gameplay changes. Esperia and Fyori already have their optional event chains implemented and can be all done in Disk 2.

Entertainment abound, gather round!
If you count the character-focused optional event chains that unlock the three new worlds, there are 55 events slated in total. 17 of these are boss fights. With one at medium Difficulty, Five at hard difficulty, eight at SURREAL difficulty, and 3 at INSANE difficulty.

Spriteopia: Eight events planned, two being boss fights.
The Queen of Shadows
Seradath: The Night Bringer (Aspect of Darkness)

The Pink Sun: Two events planned.

Dysmonia: Three events planned.

Terra: Five events planned, three of which are boss fights.
Valin Jaeger
Nikki Hirogashi
Trixie Valenthart

Archanul Minor, Major and Ultima (Terra's moons) are three events, one on Minor, then Major, with a boss fight on Ultima.
Safael: The World Shaper (Aspect of Form)

Noirpinot: Four events planned, two of which are boss fights.
King Richard
Ghosts of the Apocalypse

Shale: Six events planned, three of which are boss fights.
Dibella Crowspeaker
Bubbles: The Grim Reaper (Aspect of Death)
Xeltara: The Unholy Butcher

The Pandemonic Clock: Four events planned, two of which are boss fights.
Rykki: Schroedinger's Catgirl
Xaela: The Eldritch Mortician

There's also small singular space encounters. Five in total, two of which will initiate boss fights.
Galdath: The Light Bearer (Aspect of Radiance)
Xenrasa: The Scarlet Rager

There's also five events upon the Starship Entropy, including one boss fight.
Xali: The Letter of Endings

Finally, there's a single event on a so far unknown location. This is a boss fight.
Astaroth: The Demon Lord

Despite them being among the Children of Calamity, Xenrasa and Astaroth are NOT rated as insane difficulty, but surreal. They will follow the gimmick of not really being able to be beaten, only survived. They are not considered super bosses.

I think that's all I can share right now!
There will be a couple little bonus fights in the main story, such as M.F. lazarus testing you as the end of Act twist boss.As well as a fight with The Sun God Ra, although you have Mira and Dibella helping in that battle. it might honestly just become a cutscene instead. We'll see.

Oh, if you're wondering, The Pandemonic Clock is the location where Lucifrael hides herself. Similar to how Naamah is on the moon, and Eisheth is on the Sun, and Agrat bat Mahlat a void. Rykki is the first character you'll meet there- well, one of her anyway. There are just a bunch of time copies running around repairing the clock while others break it or just play with a ball of yarn. The clock itself is potentially the system clock for Yi and Wi's computer, or at least its ingame implementation. Fighting Xaela here makes perfect sense, as she was the Aspect of Time back in Eden's time and still retains those abilities.

Xeltara is actually guiding Mira as Eset but still considers her a good friend even though Mira doesn't work for her. Her fighting you on Terra, a planet where the heavens are in free fall and there's loads of upside down triangles serving as arena floors on the tops, just kinda suits perfect.

Xenrasa is in space when you find her, but she'd recently devoured the world soul of Polara, and you meet those funny doofuses and the one they wanna kill, or... whats left of him.

This is also when we'll get a brief appearance from Mischevia in her Demon Lord apparel, how? Time travel. She's stabilizing a loop.

Astaroth? I dunno. Probably on a dying world that she's taking her time to leisurely drain the people of. Likely intending to wait until she's drained its people one by one until she finished it all off with the world's soul itself.

Anyway, right now I gotta worry about the April build. if you get far enough in Demo 3, you'll likely start to notice placeholders and other stuff, rare as it is, is missing. April build will correct that and more.