1) Jetlag off of JNR, and the rewrites that follow
I mean no offense to Doors about this, if he takes any, but JNR is bad in its absurdity, far more than its mapping or strange choices in final bosses.
Many of you probably know my first post back here after about 5 years since I quit
(after a rather childish dispute over Eternal Chaos, but that's neither here nor there) was a
rather large shitpost/review of the changes presented in JNR. Perhaps it wasn't terribly mature of me to make that post either, but the ensuing argument sparked a nice 'let's see you do better', and the mod that followed. It gave me motivation to work on it, and eventually finish it.
So, to first explain my process and motivation, I must put forth an effort to explain what I feel JNR did inherently wrong. Again, no offense intended to Doors of this.
The best way I can describe it is "
Anime". There is a very distinct "
Anime" feel to JNR's given ending. It's difficult to describe exactly what this means, but the best I can give is 'a lot of reasonless reasons'. I'll admit shmitz is probably more at fault of this than Doors might be since he set the plot up to this effect; Genesis and Oblivion are things Jenka sort of just made
{because ???}, and they were fulfilling their namesake in destroying and reconstructing the island, again,
{because ???}. There really wasn't a lot to go from there in terms of writing an ending. There are a lot of reasons or resolutions you could come to, and I decided on the chosen for a very simple, but powerful one:
2) Explain goddamn everything
The biggest cure-all for "
Anime", or better put as 'a lot of reasonless reasons', is to give a sufficient explanation for as much as you can in the plot.
The biggest questions lingering were as follows:
a) Why was Jenka unconscious?
b) Why was Jenka's magic destroying the island she cared about?
c) If Jenka was so intent on destroying the island, why were Quote, Curly, Balrog, and Sue brought back to the island?
These questions I added to be posed by Booster and Misery in
THE LONGEST CUTSCENE EVERTM, and adding these questions into the mod itself makes the player ask these questions as well.
While I can't vouch for shmitz or his intent without him popping by to answer questions
(He won't answer my tweets), I imagine his original idea was one of nostalgia, memories, those kinds of things. Jenka brought those familiar to the island (Wait, when did she meet or know about Sue at all?) to combat some sort of threat, or do some sort of thing. And maybe she created that thing for them to do as well. Maybe it was just some dream she was legitimately having, and it began effecting reality for some sort of
Anime reason.
But the biggest factor is this:
d) What's to stop these events from occurring again in the future, ad infinitum?
So there had to be a reason for the 'whys', and the best one I could possibly think of without throwing in bigger, meaner, more omnipotent villains than Ballos (or Ballos, which would have been worse), is simply The Doctor. All factors and reasons I feel set up a very solid revenge plot. A very dramatic, over-the-top, and ridiculously complex one, but we're talking about a giant nerd with a PHD and evil Redflower crystal powers. It isn't as big a stretch as a purple mirror demon was.
3) Explain why the things explained are explainable
You can probably tell by this heading that I took things way too seriously, and way too logically in piecing the mod together. Maybe that's reason enough to hate some of the things. Let me explain.
a) How the hell could the Doctor be powerful enough, or even survive for that matter?
Foremost is partly answered in the game itself. Jenka was indeed mourning Ballos' death, and there are many griefs and sorrows one feels when mourning. Whether Jenka was once human, or mortal, or whatever the devil, is a story that could be covered by someone else, and I'm sure would make a decent enough mod idea if someone competent tackled it. But I assume her emotions align with what humans would go through. I've been depressed, and I've lost loved ones. I've seen people mourn, and I've seen the pain it causes. It isn't to be taken lightly.
Maybe The Doctor wasn't powerful enough to truly beat Jenka in a fight, magic or otherwise
(SOMEONE DRAW A PICTURE OF THE DOCTOR GETTING HIT BY A CANE BY JENKA PLEASE OH MY GOD), but Jenka wasn't really feeling it that day.
So, how could he have survived? There are many factors to consider here. There's no evidence of the limits of the Red Crystal he put together. While the Demon Crown was magic given by Ballos, the Red Crystal Doctor seemed powerful enough on his own to house the body of the Undead Core without so much as a breath of effort. Moreover, we never see the Red Crystal truly shatter or be destroyed. It seems to be absorbed by Sue to turn her into the Mimiga monster version of herself in the final boss fight, but after the fight is over we see her right as rain again without so much as a scratch on her.
I think it's more incredible that Sue survived than anything.
b) What the fuck even was his revenge plot, oh my god
It's simple, really. Not outstanding or anything that would get him an A+ on a paper about it, but effective enough for a video game plot.
Lure everyone back to the island, collapse it onto them, usurp island as interplanetary throne, take over the world, ???, Profit.
(Those last ones aren't really explained at all, but what else do you do after steps one and two?)
Quote, Curly, and Balrog would be the easy ones. As shown in the intro, they live within viewing distance of the island, and probably aren't terribly far away from it. I imagine Jenka's magic has a range to it, and let's just pretend they were within that range. Ask shmitz for further details on how Teleportation magic works.
For Sue, the best linked consideration for her is Misery's magic being put at play. It's entirely true that Itoh was also within that same vice, but honestly who gives a crap about Itoh I mean seriously.
Once Sue was abducted, it was only a matter of time before the gears would grind, and transport off the island would be sent. Momorin was almost guaranteed to be there, and Itoh was really a matter of luck, but again, nobody cares about Itoh jesus fuck. (Maybe he and Momorin have a thing going, maybe she's into furry rabbit dudes, I don't know.)
All things come together when these are considered. And that was the Doctor's plan. Genesis and Oblivion were to be the intended apprehenders of Momorin and Itoh, but Quote came in and beat them up. So he had to improvise...
4) Seriously? That last bit with Curly? What are you, president of her fanclub?
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2914689/1/The-Stranger-I-Knew
I leave this here. Take it as you will, treat me as you'd like. But this is a heavy contributor to the idea at present.
For those of you who refuse to sully your history tab with fanfiction.net, the above is a short re-write of the original CS's default ending. In short, instead of the Red Crystal consuming/being consumed by Sue, it make a b-line for Quote, smashes through his chest, and takes over his body (He then goes on to kill Sue and Misery, which is probably a step too far in that regard). Then Curly comes around, has a fight with her own incompetence as to what classifies the laws of robotics, and finally breaks the Red Crystal, and dies together with Quote in the falling island.
I don't know exactly what it is, but for its flaws, and evidence by JN's ending, I really liked this story.
In JN's case, after The Doctor takes over Quote's body, he leaves all the equipment behind and heads to the Balcony to terrorize everyone. There are subtle hints of this in the dialog; no-one tells you he was using Quote's body, but the people who were up there are rather unhinged and try to avoid talking about it. Itoh, if you speak with him before heading to 'Sand Zone?', lays it on the heaviest, and is effectively... well, Itoh.
Ultimately, a part of me wanted to make the fight with Red Quote to be Curly Brace styled, but I scrapped that idea due to the shape of the arena, and that fight's AI being way too simple to be difficult for that stage of the game. I settled with simply the Misery fight with the red wispy stuff flowing around the room to change the dynamic of the fight a little bit.
As for Quote and giving him a life pot or not, the thought crossed my mind, but a major credit cutscene I wanted was for the Gunsmith to be the one to come along and fix up Quote. If Quote were functional at the time, he wouldn't really require fixing. A technical limitation, however, is Kazuma's Dragon and the available sprites. I had to use one of the ones available for Balrog so his flight off the island in the regular ending would look good, and the mimiga mask version for Curly and Kazuma on the dragon. Sue's 'dangling' sprite was removed so it wouldn't show up in either scene.
At its core, while it would be pretty great to have Quote ride your back with the Nemesis or something, there are too many limits to what I can do. If I'm being perfectly honest, I wanted to add something like that, but Curly's NPC and riding your back are all shared sprites, and even if I put in the needless ASM work, do you really want to trade your Life Pot for the one dungeon in which you
need it most?
5) Daisuke? Really? Chivalry is dead, let me tell you.
Honestly, that joke never even crossed my mind as an idea. First I heard of it was Dunc joking around with it when he played the final test version before 1.0.0.0 was released.
If you check the bookshelf in the Prefab house, it explains some pretty important bits. It's the piece of information that points out Daisuke by name as Sue's dad, and sets up the idea that he had been murdered, and the original trip to the island was delayed. It sets up the idea that The Doctor was the murderer, and sets up a very big revelation to the plot that Dunc and Co. seemed to dislike:
The original mission to the island was never for the crown, or its research. Daisuke Sakamoto wanted to retrieve Quote and Curly after having lost communication with them years prior, after the wars on the island came to a close.
The Doctor, for any depressing oh-woe-is-me reasons you want, was called out by Ballos as the next crown bearer, and he murdered Daisuke Sakamoto to cover up the original reason for visiting the island. Whether The Doctor was ever aware of Ballos before, or during his reign with the Demon Crown is up to anyone, but he learns of Ballos eventually, and smugly quotes his famous line before fighting you.
Honestly, if 'Daisuke Sakamoto' is that big a deal, I can change the first name to something else. I just thought it was more ironic, is all.
In conclusion, The Doctor is the villain because, provided the idea that he survived the fight with the Undead Core, and provided a little bit of backstory, it makes the most sense. At least, it does to me.
jk