Click Here for Update 92
: Time for an update of nothing but Haru. Off screen, I have her grow some tomatoes. We’ll need full-party SP recovery for later.
: “It says here that the type of roast you want should differ depending on how you want to drink your coffee.”
: giggle “I’d rather not. I don’t think I could ever hope to match the intense depth of Sakura-san’s coffee. You know, Okumura Foods didn’t start out as a burger chain… originally it was nothing more than a small cafe run by my grandfather.”
: “That particular shop closed before I was old enough to appreciate the finer intricacies of coffee. But that’s where the real origin of our family business lies.”
: “I didn’t either. My father only first mentioned it to me a year or two ago. At any rate, after my grandfather passed, the company shut the cafe down due to its steady loss of revenue.”
: “He had never cared about turning a profit though. His only goal was to make people happy. He built a strong community around the cafe.. he’d even give out free meals to those who couldn’t afford it.”
: Was your grandfather Shadow the Hedgehog?
: “Then the day it closed, people lined up for blocks to give flowers. They really loved that place… I wonder how many people would line up for Big Bang Burger if it suddenly went out of business…”
: “I know we need to do well to keep our employees paid, but I can’t help but think we’ve lost something important. I mean, Takakura-san seems to only be focused on profits… at this rate, we’ll never lose our black image.”
: What she’s talking about there is Okumura Foods being a so-called ‘black company’, which is a Japanese term used for a company embroiled in scandals.
: “…Huh? Oh, I get it! giggle You’re so funny, Akira-kun! You were trying to cheer me up, weren’t you…? Thanks for that. sigh I think what I really need.. is to get stronger.”
: “I mean, I can act tough in front of my employees.. but you know how weak I am inside. …I have a plan though. Before I can really determine who I trust, I first need to know what it means to have others trust in me.”
: “So I’m going to get stronger… strong enough for you and the others to rely on me!”
: “Hm… but how am I supposed to gain the trust of my employees? I’m not great at public speaking… and even just giving my opinion makes me a little nervous…”
: “Hm? Do I know you from somewhere? …! You’re one of those brats from before…”
: “Um, this is a friend from school. He’s helping me look for some books today. Anyway, we should be getting back to our shopping. Please excuse us.”
: “…Hold on, Haru. You think you can go on a date with another man and leave your fiance in the dust?”
: “You are not my fiance.. I already said, I’m not going to marry you.”
: “Oh yeah? And what about the contract I made with your father?”
: “F-Father is.. no longer here… besides, marriage is something you go into with your own free will… a contract could never hold the same weight..”
: “Are you sure about that? Think about the reparations clause. If you back out of the deal now, you will lose everything you own. Okumura Foods, your estate..”
: I’m pretty sure Hashino has no idea how contracts work.
: “Even so, I…”
: “And what about your employees? Are you really willing to put their jobs on the line for the sake of your selfishness? Besides, this marriage is exactly what Okumura Foods needs right now.”
: “My father would have no trouble managing your shares or sweeping away your company’s tarnished image.”
: Why would you even need to ‘manage’ them? It’s stock in one company. It’s not like her father was a hedge fund manager.
: “That reminds me, did Takakura-san tell you about the wedding hall? He got us the Phoenix Wing at the Wilton.”
: “Wh-What!?”
: “He made a provisional reservation for ten days this coming spring. After all, the sooner the better.”
: “W-Wait a minute!”
: “We’ll have to look into our guests’ schedules as well. There’ll be over three hundred of them, you know.”
: I like to think that in the background, Joker’s texting Yusuke. “Haru’s idiot fiance just bought a big expensive wedding hall. Do you want to get married once it inevitably falls through?”
: “I’m out of here.”
: “I’m sorry about that…”
: “You’re not wrong about that… he has everything… fame, intelligence, etiquette… the only thing he needs now is a wife he can control… and I guess I’m the perfect target.”
: I want a wife who is completely out of control. We’re talking like, clipping through walls in real life to go out of bounds.
: “He’s going to get Okumura Foods as well as my entire inheritance… and I’m totally powerless against him…”
: Something tells me Okumura may have been solidly in the ‘too dumb to live’ camp.
: “You’re right… I can’t afford to drag myself down with such negativity. …Thank you. Anyway, um, I hope I can share with you again some other time. For today though.. I’m rather tired. Would it be okay if we parted here?”
: “The thing is, Sugimura-san reached out to me again after we saw him. I’d rather not talk to him, but I couldn’t stand him using the company to threaten me, and even speaking badly of you…”
: “The negativity felt so painful, too much to handle alone, and… before I knew it, I was already calling you.”
: “Hearing that makes me so happy… thank you. Even though I just promised myself I’d get stronger, I suppose I’m still just depending on you. But still, I can’t help but worry about the contract…”
: “…How frustrating. I can’t just let them keep manipulating me like a puppet. I have to find some way I can change this.”
: We have a crossword tonight. Why do I even bother showing these anymore?
: And now we have Ohya’s optional event. This one requires you to be Rank 8 or higher.
: “C’mon, don’t hold back! Order anything you want. Think of it as a thanks for all the info you’ve given me. Plus, I like to eat normal food once in a while too, you know.”
: “Heh.. yeah, you’re right. Let’s make sure we get nice and energized for out next big mission. Okay, it’s on me today! Knock yourself out!”
: “Wow, you ate a ton… well, I guess that’s normal for a high school kid. …I’ll just have you make up for it with more scoops. I’ll be counting on you!”
: “Well, I guess we should get going. Let’s get some sushi to go and stop by Lala-chan’s place.”
: “Hey.. I didn’t know you could buy this. All right, I’m giving you one as a gift! Now we’ll each have one piece of a matching set.”
: Let’s put down our new decorations.
: Probably the fact that he’s in a kinda mediocre puzzle VN.
: Holy fuck that’s a huge mug. Anyway, let’s move on to Haru’s Rank 7. We’ll be skipping the 30th entirely (because that’s the day we do Futaba’s Rank 10). I may also start skipping nights, since we’ve seen the vast majority of the nighttime confidant events and there’s not a whole lot else to do.
: “I thought it would be fun making coffee myself. It’s certainly not easy, but it’s an immensely satisfying process…”
: “I’m fine, honestly… let’s see, next up is.. dirt for the planters…”
: “I’m sorry… I think I just need to rest a little.”
: “Takakura-san has really been pushing for us to start a new business venture soon… in particular, he’s adamant about a chain of low-cost, intimate cafes. Some employees don’t think it’s a good idea though, so they want me to step in and put a stop to it…”
: “But I’m just a high schooler… there’s no way I could predict the success or failure of this idea.. in the end, I’m just not sure what to do.”
: “H-Huh…? That’s a good question… the idea does sound nice… the smell of a fresh cup of coffee always brings a smile to my face. And it certainly would be nice to be able to give that experience to as many people as possible…”
: “But.. I don’t think you can truly gain the same joy from the low-cost chain Takakura-san is suggesting.”
: Yeah, it’s probably really hard to replicate Leblanc’s “no customers” atmosphere.
: “Huh…? You really think he’d listen to a high schooler with no prior work experience? Hm, I see…”
: “I’ll make him see what I’m really thinking… and what’s truly important to me.”
: “I understand… by refusing to trust Takakura-san, I was also shutting myself off from any hope of having him trust me..! But that’s going to be different now.. I’ll do my best, Akira-kun!”
: This ability works retroactively and lowers the time needed to harvest by one day.
: “…Oh, and I just thought of the perfect way to do it! A magic item that will help me convey my true feelings to Takakura-san… giggle It’s going to take some time to prepare though, so it will have to be my secret for now.”
: “But I’ll tell you next time, okay? Now then, shall we return home?”
: “I wanted to thank you again. You helped me realize something important… thank you so much for today. It’s thanks to your support that I can keep pushing forward.”
: “Just hearing you say that gives me so much strength. You’re always such an inspiration, Akira-kun. The rest is up to me. It’s going to be a lot of trial and error… but I believe it’ll go well.”
: “And it’d make me very happy if you could help me through the process. I’ll have to make sure everything is ready first, though. Okay, I’ll see you again at the rooftop.”
: On my first recording run, I took Futaba to the jazz club because what’s supposed to happen is that her support abilities power up. Turns out that only happens if you take her on a night when it would teach your party member a skill.
: Instead, she gets a stat boost.. which is pointless because her stats don’t do anything. We will be coming back here a few times in January to get some really good skills - namely Ali Dance, Arms Master for Yusuke and Spell Master for Ann.
: While recording, I remembered there was something very important we were supposed to do now that we have a lot of free nights.
: No, it’s not to place a giant statue of Sae inside Joker’s brain palace because the sight of that tramp stamp is now forever etched in his memory.
: Nor is it to do the batting cages. You can get prizes if you do it during the day, but free days are a luxury we do not have. I played on Extreme and I think you can figure out how that went.
: This was out of over 20 pitches.
: Oh, that’s right. It’s darts. We want to raise our baton pass rank because it’s one of the only remaining ways we have to boost Joker’s damage.
: The game has descriptions for each party member’s playstyle. Fuck that nonsense, they’re all the same. Also Yusuke throws beautifully because he is our boyfriend and everything he does is beautiful.
: So here’s how darts works. Each time you invite someone, you’ll also get a second random party member who will play with you in a second round. This means you can improve two characters per run.
: The controls for this are the worst possible thing. You use the gyro to aim and then can freeze the aim area with R2…
: And then you have to shake the controller to throw like this is 2007 and you’re Naughty Dog desperately trying to find a way to shoehorn the Sixaxis controls into Uncharted 1.
: Remember when Naughty Dog made games and not CGI films?
: Once you hit R2, a little white ball appears inside the oval and starts bouncing around. It kinda follows Pong physics in that it’ll hit the walls of the oval and bounce off at an angle.
: It takes me a bit to hit a bullseye because there’s a degree of lag in the motion controls. I don’t think that’s my capture card, because usually it’s pretty low latency.
: You trade off after each round.
: Joker is immediately shown up by his boyfriend.
: I unintentionally fuck up on the third round trying to hit the bullseye. This is actually a good thing, and is also why your partner’s stats do not matter in the slightest. What you want to do is get your score at 100 or under in the third round and leave it.
: What happens here is that you get a dialog option. Pick the right one, and your partner automatically wins the game for you and you get two baton pass levels instead of one.
: If you pick the wrong one, your partner will fail and usually go below zero, which forces you to finish in the fifth round.
: Yusuke goes from Rank 1 to Rank 3. Given that he has Charge, passing to a Charged Yusuke is a really good idea if you can’t hit a weakness.
: Level 3 baton pass makes a pretty big difference, by the way. We go into the part of Mementos that covers Sae’s palace next update, and at one point I got a baton pass to Joker and was hitting 1000 damage with Beelzebub even without Concentrate.
: Once we finish with Yusuke, Ryuji wants to play. We’re already Rank 2 with him due to the tutorial we went through way back when, which is perfect because you can’t get the rank-up bonus in 501.
: By the time we finish this update, I hit at least Rank 2 with everyone but Morgana and Futaba. I’m not sure if the game can choose Futaba as a random second partner, but she can’t get anything out of it.
: That’s kinda disappointing. I would’ve liked to see a thing where you can train her up and baton pass to her if you can’t hit a weakness so she can do a full-party heat riser or something.
: So what you’re saying is that it’s been a… long December, but there’s reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last?
: Wait a second. Why does Yusuke take this train? This is the one that goes to Aoyama. I mean, we don’t know where his school is, but still.
: I’m going to save Haru’s Rank 9 and 10 for next update, where we’re going to finally 100% the base game. Technically it’s more like 110% because Maruki and Kasumi didn’t exist in the base game, plus we did all the Caroline and Justine events.
: “The thing that will help me show Takakura-san how I really feel… is right here.”
: giggle “Correct! You see, the soil here is a special mix I made with a few different kinds of fertilizer. It’s very high quality. It’s soft, it’s warm, it has good drainage… and it’s full of nutrients. This.. this is the magic I need.”
: “But I’ve been pouring my heart and soul into this soil for months now. It knows exactly how I feel. That’s why I’m going to use it to grow my coffee plants.”
: “Then once they’re ready, I’m going to make coffee with the beans! It shouldn’t be much longer now. Honestly… just raising those plants has taken considerable effort.”
: “I’ve checked on them every day, given them water, put them in the sun… but… all of that love and care has found its way into the beans themselves.”
: “Combining that with the nurturing warmth of this soil should give me the perfect way to convey how I feel. I wonder what Takakura-san will think when he tries it..”
: giggle “I hope you’re right. I’m not particularly confident in the flavor though. After all, this is my first attempt. By the way, I’ve thought about it some more and… I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to Takakura-san’s idea.”
: You know, this is something I didn’t think of while I was recording, but Haru’s confidant events are all very samey. You’d think that for a character who only appears a month and a half before the base game ends they would’ve gone out of their way to make her confidant interesting.
: “If that’s what management decides to do, I won’t get in their way. At the same time, I can’t support them if their main goal is to deceive. What I mean is, people don’t think of Okumura Foods very highly right now.”
: “So.. I’m afraid management is trying to use this new chain to sneak under the radar rather than rebuild our image. Of course, I understand how hard it is to rid yourself of a negative label…”
: giggle “Well, naturally. I’m a heroine of justice, after all…just kidding. You know, Akira-kun.. it’s so reassuring having you here. It’s because of you that I was able to cultivate this soil…”
: “And because of you that I have the courage to tell Takakura-san how I really feel. Speaking of which, um… do you think you could be there when I do it? As long as you’re with me, I won’t be afraid to say what I’m thinking.”
: “Now then, I need to take some of this soil home to my coffee plants. Could you carry a bag for me? Well, see you later.”
: “I’m already testing the soil I brought home today. I can tell my coffee plants are happy.”
: “Come to think of it, I remember seeing some plants in Leblanc too. Are you taking good care of them? Make sure you give them lots of love, okay?”
: “…All that’s left is for me to muster up the courage and express my own opinion. I’ll contact Takakura-san. And I’ll make sure it works with your schedule. I hope.. my magic item will work on Takakura-san.”
: “I’m going to do everything I can, so I hope you’ll see it through with me. Okay, bye!”
: “They’re right: this is totally bizarre. What’s going on here?”
: The last thing we’ll do this update is Iwai’s optional event. Next time, we’ll 100% the game. We’ll also see the last optional Caroline and Justine event, spend the better part of two million yen on fusion, have terrible luck trying to itemize armor, and spend an hour looking at a fusion calculator to figure out how to pass down Fire Boost.
: “Yeah, this’ll do. Thanks for tellin’ me about it.”
: “I’m surprised you figured that out. …I wanna give a student who’s preparin’ for the high school entrance exams a chance to relax. Either way, thanks for today.”
: If you’re wondering why he’s not mentioning Kaoru, it’s because this event can happen at any time after Rank 1.
: “I’ll continue bein’ flexible with our deal. Make sure you keep bein’ useful for me, all right? Man, there’s so much nature here. It must be really peaceful during the day… but it’s places like this where you’re most likely to run into trouble.”
: “So just be careful. I remember him playin’ with something like this… I think it was a duck, though. Anyway. You oughta hold on to it. For future purposes, and all.”
