Huh, I probably just attributed that to the current affairs. Didn’t know that at all. That doesn’t change anything though.
I, as I’ve said before, didn’t notice Rin developing throughout the story, and all of the Rin-focused scenes in the final two routes of the VN felt like they were just thrown in because “oh no, we forgot Rin again!” I can understand all of these things being a part of the story, and they probably intended it to be there, but when I read the VN none of that was there.
Ehh, how did you manage to miss that? It was the one thing in the common route that kept changing after each playthrough. You can’t miss it, the ‘skip read lines’ always stops when Rin has something to say.
I probably just didn’t notice them. I won’t remember what changes happened between common routes; I was focused on just getting the heroine routes done.
Just think back to the end of Rin2.
Riki and Rin are on their own, living in an old house. Riki does all the work, procuring food and everything else they need to live while Rin is just lazing around 24/7 and playing with cats, that are essentially just a waste of food. Rin is not only not contributing to their survival, she’s even making things more difficult for Riki, who’s not even suited for manual labor.
That’s the reason why the police came rushing in in the first place. If Rin became more proactive and started being more self-sufficient and thus less of a burden, the route would probably have ended in a simple reset. She could have developed into a stronger person because the circumstances required her to.
Rin still had a chance there. But she just ignored the situation she was in.
She did nothing while entirely relying on Riki. Therefore, this farce had to end.
And then, Rin did the worst thing she ever could. Riki had given up EVERYTHING for her sake and struggled on a daily basis because of her. But when the police knocked on the door, Rin bit Riki in the hand and chose her new-found cats over him. After everything he’s done for her. That right there is just spitting into Riki’s face.
I’m still confused about how you read stuff while only paying a minimum amount of attention to it. Are you even having fun? xD
C’mon, isn’t that uncalled for?
I’m not trying to make fun of him or anything. It’s just not the first time Takafumi said he skipped or didn’t notice things that I found important and/or interesting. Just saying you’re missing out on the fun if you skip stuff in VNs…
I agree. It was very strange that Riki was having Rin sit around all day while he worked his ass of trying to keep himself, her, and her cats alive. And she clearly had no idea what was going on in the last scene in the dark. This really does show how much she didn’t understand, how weak she was at that point. She did have the mind of a child.
But I think all this is really just evidence for how badly Kyousuke broke her by pushing too far, not for what a terrible character Rin is. I think it was suddenly being all alone, completely confused and lost, terrified, a situation she had never been in before in her entire life, which caused her to become so utterly helpless.
[quote=“Naoki_Saten, post:24, topic:474”]
That’s the reason why the police came rushing in in the first place. If Rin became more proactive and started being more self-sufficient and thus less of a burden, the route would probably have ended in a simple reset.
[/quote]This just isn’t true. You really think if Rin had gone out and fished with Riki every day and had only kept the original two cats suddenly no one would have come barging into their house? That just doesn’t make sense. And even if they had escaped from the house because Riki was able to convince Rin to get out, it hadn’t been possible for the route to end in a simple reset ever since they had ran away. We know this because in Refrain, it is when Kyousuke hears that Riki and Rin ran away from school that he thinks the stuff about the gears being out of whack and the world being broken. Ever since Kyousuke screwed up, it was not possible for the route to not end in darkness
As a side note, I know its implied that its the police that barge in, but its never actually stated who it was besides the fact that they were tall, dark men. Maybe I’m crazy and this is way too much of a stretch, but I kinda think that those might have been the darkness executives. Just the way they kept mentioning the darkness (it was dark in the room when it happened, Rin said she was afraid of the dark, Kengo says that doing what Kyousuke did will only lead to darkness, etc.) and never really explained exactly what happened in that scene kind of just made me want to think that.
Did you never consider the possibility that Kyousuke would still keep monitoring Riki and Rin after their escape? However, he did not make an appearance. Why? Do you really think he wouldn’t be able to find them and drag them home? Also, someone had to be there to create the ‘map’ of Grandpa’s house and the people.
Didn’t it strike you as odd that Rin had found an ARMY of cats upon arrival? Cats have a meaning in LB. During Refrain, Lennon was the only cat left. Yes, by the time none of the girls were around.
Therefore, I say it was by Kyousuke’s will that the police would turn up and raid the house in order to get Riki and Rin back. He gave them another chance and they just failed because Rin didn’t do anything and Riki wasn’t strong enough to support both of them.
Reading isn’t the fun part to me. Experiencing the story is what I’m after. Unlockable scenes, bad ends, and any similar concepts are just distractions, and I’d rather spend my time on something else. If I had eternity to live, then I’d happily sit through everything, but there’s only so much time in the world, and I will take the quickest route possible to maximize what fun I have. Do something fun, reminisce before sleeping, and then start something new upon waking up.
When it comes to VNs, half the time I’m reading, a quarter of the time I’m daydreaming, and for the rest I’m holding ctrl
Riki hadn’t grown either. He was in the state of mind where he just wanted Rin to be happy. If he was a bit more focused on the situation he’d have at least tried to make her contribute to their cause.
Agreed. Rin contributing wouldn’t have stopped the police investigating activity in the house of a dead man. Maybe if she had no cats around it’d have been fine for a few weeks, but that still doesn’t change much.
Even then, the secret of the world invalidates all of that.
I’m pretty sure everyone agrees that that happens. It’s not a matter of considering…
If he aimed to “give them a chance” then having police come along to take Rin away wasn’t the answer.
As I said, not giving chase immediately and letting them face the consequences of their decision was Kyousuke giving them a chance. After all, there was still a possibility of Rin becoming stronger due to the new, challenging situation.
However, Rin kept relying on Riki, so Kyousuke sent the cops in to put an end to it when it became obvious that those two wouldn’t become stronger at this rate.
So I promised @yerian98 that I would talk about the Rin route and why I didn’t like it. Rather, it’s more accurate to say that I didn’t enjoy it.
It’s hard to explain why I would not enjoy something. Though I’ll try~ Firstly, the romance in the Rin route was absolutely dead. Rin just suddenly tells Riki that she likes him. Riki reciprocates. Nothing changes. And, like I mean, literally nothing changes. You’ve seen how in the other routes, things do change with all the other characters. And just watching them go at their daily lives was not really entertaining.
Then comes the part about “preparing” Rin to become better. I have experience with how shy people react to things and while playing, my mind was just screaming “that isn’t how you do things.” Therefore, I really wasn’t surprised at her feeling alone and isolated and crying to Riki over it. And that felt really more daunting as I was watching the results of their decisions. Then Riki decides to run away and leave with Rin which is even more daunting. Well, we all know how well that ended so I guess the point was for it to fail completely, but… It failed at being entertaining in the meantime.
And theeen came in the big reveal. Kyousuke planning everything; Riki getting help from Kengo; Masato helping Kyousuke; Basically… The entire CHEAP TRICKS scene. That was the highlight of the entire route for me, and the only entertaining part of it. It kept me on my seat all the way until they explained it in the Refrain route. But it’s not really part of the problem with Rin, and I could see that. It was a Kyousuke thing. Kengo didn’t like how Kyousuke was dealing with things (and neither did I), while Rin was just the subject.
After reading Refrain, of course, everything makes sense. I loved what happened and how it pushed the story. It just… failed to entertain me.
I totally agree with this. It wasn’t entertaining at all and I stopped at this point. But i think i need to finish it and read refrain~
You really, really do 
Yup. Rin wasn’t the important part of Rin2 or Refrain. She was a plot device.
That was the whole point. But I can understand that part not being entertaining, especially since it was the part that you have read twice. Though, let me ask, did you not enjoy the common route all that much either? Because looking back the first part of Rin’s route feels a hell of a lot like the common route.
[quote=“Pepe, post:31, topic:474”]
I have experience with how shy people react to things and while playing, my mind was just screaming “that isn’t how you do things.”
[/quote]Again, thats the point. Because Riki is obviously screaming the whole time “that isn’t how you do things.” And because, as we see in Refrain, Kyousuke’s actions were clearly not the right choice, and ended up making everything worse.
[quote=“Pepe, post:31, topic:474”]
Then Riki decides to run away and leave with Rin which is even more daunting.
[/quote]Thats the perfect description of it! It was supposed to feel daunting, it was supposed to feel not right. I will say it over and over again: The reason Rin’s route feels really off and confusing is because thats how Riki feels. Its OK if you just dont enjoy that, but at least appreciate that (at lest imo) thats how it was supposed to be in order to convey those feelings.
[quote=“Pepe, post:31, topic:474”]
But it’s not really part of the problem with Rin,
[/quote]Yes. Your right. As they made even more glaringly obvious in Refrain, Rin never gets the development and time spent focusing on her that she deserves. I think @Takafumi described it perfectly: she really is kinda a plot device. And thats really one of the only things that disappoints me about Little Busters!
And finally, I’m surprised you didn’t say anything about the ending. The culmination of all that confusion. And honestly the very last scene (the one with the CG) is one of my favorite moments of Little Busters! Especially that ending song, which along with its title, fits the scene so perfectly.
There was something about common route that was just a lot more entertaining. I think it was because all the other girls were in it and they were just crazy funny and all~
This is in reply to the first three paragraphs as a whole. I get how that is the point and it made a very good point. It was a very very good set up for refrain and I think it was very well-written in context. It’s just that it wasn’t entertaining. I know, entertainment is a very subjective thing, and all, but that’s just me.
Yeah I did appreciate it; Like I said:
Just because it made me feel bad doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it. I can enjoy that, heck, I enjoy that sort of thing all the time. Just that they wrote it in such a way that it wasn’t entertaining.
You see, the only interesting thing in the ending happened in, what, the last 2 minutes? There’s a reason why they made that whole “Riki and Rin and their new life together” down to just 1 minute in the anime. When the interesting thing did happen, that just paved the way for Refrain, and it got REALLY interesting.
Again, to summarize how I feel about Rin’s route, I highly appreciate the writing and the events that occurred because it allowed everything that happened in Refrain to happen the way it did. But, practically the entire time playing it, I just had this “meh” expression on my face. No laughs, no tears… Just meh.
Of course, all except the CHEAP TRICKS scene.
No, I get it. There can be a huge difference between something being “good”, “well writen”, etc, and being enjoyable. And everyone draws the lines in different places.[quote=“Pepe, post:36, topic:474”]
You see, the only interesting thing in the ending happened in, what, the last 2 minutes?
[/quote]Yup those last two minutes were exactly what I was referring to.
Your right though. Rin’s route wasn’t very long in the first place, and it certainly shouldnt have been any longer. Just long enough to set up a bunch of stuff, make you feel hella confused, make sure it you would remember it and realize its importance during Refrain, and then just throw everything off the deep end so if you didn’t want to read Refrain right then and there, you never would.
Rin is a strange creature. At the very beginning of the game, she very clearly shows the characteristics of a typical tsundere, and on top of that, her voice was annoying as all heck. However, Rin’s route was one of the few character routes I’ve read where I actually grew to like a character. Rin is one of the few characters that actually changes in personality throughout the course of the game. She starts out as an immature, hostile cat-lover, and becomes a mature and rational, yet still somewhat ill-tempered, girl.
There is not much to say about her route other than it is tightly-written, and drastically changes in both content and interpretation as the story progresses. Rin 2 felt very reminiscent of CLANNAD’s After Story in some regards, and Rin has been portrayed throughout her route as having desirable maternal qualities, and is even a decent homemaker during the events of Rin 2.
Rin’s route is among my favorites within Little Busters!. It is a near-perfect example of a well-developed romance that both breaks the mold and uses tried-and-true mechanics at the same time with wonderful execution. It never feels too long or too short, and the pacing is just right. The only problem I have with it is how Refrain ends up treating it as if there was no romance to begin with. XP
(Refrain) I would suggest reading through Refrain again - Or at least skipping through it again. There is another choice that appears that changes something later on.
I was wondering if you had actually confused Rin2 with a CLANNAD route, but then it hit me: Rin actually does display those qualities… but only to cats -_-
But there really was none. Rin remained a child, incapable of such a thing until the end of the game. If what I say sounds strange to you, feel free to read some of the posts in this topic.
