u/Lonely-Bite-2568

After defeating both Axons, Alicia visits Verso and they have a beautiful moment where Verso says “my beautiful sister doesn’t need this ugly mask” and he hugs her. One of my favorite moments from the game.

P-Renoir shows up to ruin the warm moment and questions Verso if he has thought through the consequences of what he is trying to do and how it will take away everything from everyone else.

In unison, at the end of the scene, P-Renoir and Verso say the following lines:

“May everything be decided before their very eyes, between the bars of their prison. In the shadow of the monolith.”

Sitting here thinking through what that means. As we know, there is a cruel choice at the end of the story, so I see that being what they are referring to by “May everything be decided before their very eyes”. “Between the bars of their prison” I guess means from inside the canvas? “In the shadow of the monolith” just means inside the monolith, I think.

How do you interpret this moment?

At the beginning of the game, Sophie tells Gustave that he and Lune would make a good couple. She asks “unless something already happened” and he doesn’t confirm or deny it.

Anyone think something happened between Gustave and Lune in the 4 years between Sophie and Gustave not working out and the Gommage? I am inclined to think the answer is no, but it made me wonder.

And just in general. I love Gustave. And I love Lune. Just saying!

Here is the content I have left:
•Sprong
•Serpenphare
•Clea
•Endless Tower DLC bosses
•Chromatic Petank
•Simon

What order should I do this in if I am trying to do easiest to hardest?

Thanks!

Been thinking about this:

What is the Paintress, really?

I’m not talking about >!Aline/The Curatress.!<

I mean, The Paintress that Lumière can see from their city that paints the Gommage age each year, what is that, really?

Is it a painted copy of >!Aline!<, like >!pRenoir!< is a painted copy of >!Renoir!<? Is it something else?

It seems to be outside the conventions of the other characters and beings in >!The Canvas.!<

Why can it not be damaged by anything at all?

Is anyone else bothered by this?

What do you think?

I did another post about my feelings about the ending, but I wanted to do a post on its own to do an actual review of the game. Here goes.

This game is a bucket-list experience! Full stop!

Pros
Gameplay: The parry-based combat took some time to click for me. The visual and audio cues weren’t immediately obvious for me, but once it landed, it felt seamless and genuinely great.

Story & Characters**:** The story is complicated but excellent, and the central themes of grief and loss feel universal. Gustave is an outstanding character (more on him below). The script and voice acting hit a level you’d expect from an awards-caliber play or prestige TV drama; there are scenes of characters just being human that rival anything in those mediums.

Music**:** World-class. Gustave’s theme is the standout for me, with Alicia’s theme close behind. From what I can tell, the composer hasn’t done any other major works yet, so that’s pretty remarkable.

Presentation**:** I’m no art expert, but nothing ever pulled me out of the experience visually. The characters frequently read as startlingly real.

Replayability: Between New Game+ and revisiting the story with full context, this has a lot of replay value. and it’s worth full price on that alone.

Cons
Navigation was a big gripe for me. The overworld map works fine, but in-area navigation (the Monolith, for example) needed a minimap or compass. I looked up videos more than once just to spot a climbable rope, which took me out of the game.

No progression tracking…a bestiary or completion percentage would’ve been nice.

Shader weirdness: hair occasionally turns green or shifts oddly. Minor, but noticeable for a 2025 game.

It’s sooo sad. Not really a con, I say this about every great piece of fiction I love, but everyone should go in emotionally prepared.

I think the game has real substance on the theme of grief and loss and how we deal with those things. My dad passed a few years ago and I found myself thinking about that and how I handled it a lot as I played the game. And it also made me question the way I would judge how the characters in the game handled their own grief. I couldn’t help but feel like a hypocrite when I found some of the characters to be selfish. We can all be that way when we lose someone.

What an amazing game.

Happy to hear areas where any of you agree or disagree!

Thanks for reading!

(There are spoilers in this post so if you don’t want spoilers, don’t read it)

I beat the game for the first time today. I chose the Maelle ending. Then I went and watched the Verso ending on YouTube afterwards. I think I have more questions than answers regarding the story and characters. It is a beautiful and complicated story that was made with a lot of intricacy and care, which I am really impressed by.

As I am sure many people have already discussed, I think both endings have things that really suck about them.

In Maelle’s ending, everyone is together again, but Painted Verso is still there, kind of being forced to exist even though he doesn’t want to. He looks at Maelle in the audience at the opera house and sees Alicia’s burned face. And the Dessendres have to deal with their daughter being absent probably for the remainder of her life.

In Verso’s ending, the Dessendre family are all together again and have to live in reality and face their grief, which is healthy. But the world Lumière is destroyed and Alicia is forced to live in the real world where her face is burned, she is missing an eye, and she can’t speak. So she has no quality of life, and I’m guessing no options.

Very real-world “cruel choice” (to quote the game) that the player has to make.

I am thankful I got to experience this story in my lifetime and will be thinking on it for some time.

One can’t help but wish there was an ending that gives everyone what they want and everyone is happy but that’s not real life.

Forgive me if this is accessible somewhere - I searched in the group info and searched for the topic as well but could not find it.

Is there a link to a spreadsheet that covers A4 accessories? I’m not on Discord anymore so I was hoping I could reference it here on Reddit if possible.

Going back and working on content I never cleared. Doing the 5* Katemune fight and confused on how you’re supposed to be doing the fight.

Is the conventional strategy to do as little damage as possible before breaking, and then try to 1 break him? Or just try to survive his Bunshin thing and 2-break him?

Both strategies seem to have inherent challenges from what I can tell. Keeping his HP high and then trying to 1-break him is challenging because you need to be able to do significant amounts of damage within a single break phase. Possible, but challenging.

Allowing him to clone himself seems insane, to me. I don’t see any cues that reveal which one is the real one on any given fight and they all end up using their ult skill and doing loads of damage even with damage mitigation.

Thoughts?

Anyone know if FF Hunts have been fixed? Saw a post that seems to be gone now about how you can get soft locked due to a bug. Don’t want to do them unless it’s safe.

Thanks.

Hello. Wondering with the current meta, who all should be given stat enhancing weapons? Would appreciate whatever suggestions you would be willing to take the time to write down.

Examples:
E Atk sword: Tikilen, Eliza, Cyrus EX
P Atk tome: hammy, Pardis
Etc.

I had a student tell me today that they are moving back to their home country they were born in this upcoming Monday. Today is likely the last time I will ever see them. Evidently, ICE has been holding this student’s father in detention for ~6 months and they feel like it would be best for their family’s safety to return. Never knew any of this before today. I’m so sad for this student and their family. Kids should not have to carry burdens like this.

I dunno what my goal is in posting this other than to just vent into the ether. I’m so sad for the kid.