BEOWULF ORIGIN STORYYYYYY

I can't play this game anymore, but I'm glad it was finally done. I expect more Zane (would there be an explanation about the whole Zane situation)?
Baby Beowulf is the most adorable thing ever.

Money_Lover said:

Idk who Zane is though, what's up with them

Beo's manager (apparently). His role is completely in-Zane

I'm excited! Praying to god the new team is going to be alright in the trenches of Autumn Games and SkullGirls development.

I hate to be off-topic, but is there any mention or post of the new team working on the game? i'd love to see some accounts or a "meet the new team" post or something

Have anybody played the story mode? What's your opinion about that?
I'm a bit on the fence about this one, for sure.

So, my more-or-less full thought on the Beowulf Origin Story. People say that the complement sandwich method of critique is not helpful, so I'll just go ahead and get the worst part of my criticisms out of the way first. Needless to say, the below text contains spoilers.

TL;DR: personally, I think this story is a travesty for Skullgirls lore, and honestly it's just not a great story, but it is perfectly serviceable one if you ignore that and I think most casual fans will like it

It has become clear to me now that there is no one at Autumn Games, or whatever external parties are involved with the creation of this story, that cares about established lore. Here are the worst offenders:

• The story began 38 years ago, a year before Beowulf was born. (Thankfully, getting Beo's age of 37 correct was the least they could do). A refresher: the current story takes place 7 years after the end of the Grand War, which raged for approximately a decade. So, this is set way before the War started.
  
  
• Lorenzo comes to threaten Theo, Beo's father, to force him to throw a match against Veleno, a Medici-affiliated wrestler. The awkwardness of the head of the most powerful crime family to come personally threaten a wrestler aside, he also brought Black Dahlia with him. The problem is: Black Dahlia was originally a ASG soldier, who eventually defected to the Medici after working for the Labs for some time. The ASG Labs would have been established around the start of the Grand War, since it was financed by King Franz's government in exchange for them building weapons for the Canopian Military. Needless to say, the Labs should not even have existed yet at this time, let alone having produced Dahlia in her current state.
  
  
• Even if the Labs did exist then, it is extremely unlikely that Black Dahlia would be working for the Medici yet. And EVEN if we see Dahlia then, who is said to be around 50-60 years old now, she would have been in her 20s at most, not her current appearance as an older woman. Apparently the writers don't know that Dahlia is not immortal like Lorenzo
  
  
• The timeline and lore error of the ASG Labs' existence is further emphasised by Elaine, Beo's mother, being recommended to join "Lab Zero Clinic" for treatment. We know that, even while the ASG Labs exist, the existence of Lab 0 is top secret, since they conduct extremely dangerous researches on Skullgirl blood. Completely asinine to think that they would open a public clinic calling themselves "Lab Zero", again displaying ignorance on the writers' part about the role and history of the ASG Labs
  
  
• Worse still, the person who recommended Elaine to go there was Sister Agatha, i.e. Double. There are 2 problems with this. Firstly, why on earth would Double be helping the work of the ASG Labs, when it has been clear that she is antagonistic to them, as seen by her attacking Lab 8 in the 2E timeline. Secondly, we know that Double needs to keep a low profile and stay hidden in order to influence and manipulate people in New Meridian. We know that Sister Agatha is the current disguise of Double in the present timeline, 38 years later. Why would Double be disguised as the same young nun, using the same name, for all that time? It's not like this is an on-and-off disguise she uses either, because we also see Sister Agatha appear again in another scene 9 years later, and another a few more years later with grown-up Beowulf. In that time we see Veleno age from a young wrestler to an old man. Surely someone would notice the weird immortal nun that has looked the same for 40 years?
  
  
• This is a minor one but still a bit annoying. Chapter 2 takes place in River King Casino, even though River King Casino is not built until at least 16 years before the current timeline, established in Big Band's story. The story isn't specifically stated to be happening there, so River King Casino could be used just as a placeholder, but still there could be other locations that could have been used instead such as the Medici Tower or the NWA Arena (which we don't know exactly when it was built) that would have fit with the timeline
  
  
• Another minor one: Veleno exclaims "God, he looks just like [Theo]" when seeing grown-up Beo. The main religion of Canopy is Trinitism, which worships the 3 Goddesses. We have seen in previous stories that people use the term Goddesses or at least just one Goddess, not God, when invoking their dieties. Even if it's relatively minor it shows the lack of care when considering the universe and its established lore
  
  
• Weird retcon: Double, for some reason, got involved with Beo's family, in order to get him to fulfill some sort of "destiny", when we have seen in his 2E story that Double only sees him as a useful idiot who she can sic on ASG soldiers in order to slow them down, and whom she tried to murder once he stopped listening to "Zane". This is not a man with some destiny to fulfill, and that's not a bad thing. More on this later.

These are, at best, conscious retcons, or, at worst, outright errors and contradictions (I would bet on the latter). Separately, the below are my criticisms on the story writing itself and some of the softer retcons that I think have made Beowulf's lore worse:

• The whole Lab Zero Clinic subplot is either a pointless red herring, or a bad retcon that has made Beo, in my opinion, a less interesting character. Assuming it was intentional, I think the intention of the writer was to show that Elaine went to Lab 0 and received some sort of experimental treatment, which caused Beo to become enhanced with superhuman strength. If this is the case, then I think it does a huge disservice to Beowulf's character. The most unique thing about Beo on the Skullgirls roster was that he is a completely regular human, wielding a normal but sturdy chair, but through sheer willpower and training, allows him to go toe-to-toe against fighters enhanced by magic and science, or wielding supernatural weapons. Having him be another experiment with power derived from the ASG Labs makes him so much less unique
  
  
• If the Lab 0 connection is not related to him becoming enhanced, then it's just a completely dumb story point. You'd think if she went and got some experimental drugs from some shady lab, they could at least have provided them for free or intern her as a test subject. Why the hell is she even out and their family going broke from paying for doctors? What would be the point of going to the Labs at all?
  
  
• Another stupid retcon is changing Beo from a wrestler who carves his own path through life to be some sort of long-term project of Double. Again, I think this makes him much less unique in the cast, when we already have other characters like Umbrella that has this attribute.
  
  
• This also includes Double basically indirectly giving him the Hurting. It feels like the writers really fail to understand what makes Beowulf compelling, and believe that the only way to make him important to the plot is that he must have some predetermined destiny, superhuman power, and a special weapon given to him. What a miserable way to try to "fix" a character in the exact aspects didn't need fixing.
  
  
• Beowulf's lore was a completely blank slate, and this would have been a perfect opportunity for Autumn to do something truly unique with him. But, nope, now Beo is just another sad orphan whose misfortune derived from the actions of the Medici Mafia. Now he joins the packed club of Filia, Squigly, Ms. Fortune, Peacock, Marie. To a lesser extents, Cerebella (manipulated by the Medici but we don't know how exactly she became an orphan) and Painwheel (not technically an orphan but at least disowned in her story). Sure, the Medici are the main antagonistic force in New Meridian, but they could have done ANYTHING with his story. His family didn't even originally had to be from New Meridian. Completely wasted potential.
  
  
• Not to mention the "down-on-his-luck fighter who needs to work for the Mafia" is such a cliche story. It's not "bad" in vacuum and it's a trope for a reason, but along with all the other issues it just makes the story so much more boring
  
  
• A fundamental issue with this story is that it doesn't even feel like a "Beowulf story". Hell, he didn't exist in the first chapter and was barely a character in the second. He really only appeared in the final chapter and didn't do anything much apart from making some funny quips. Theo and Elaine are good characters and their interactions were nice to read, but that should have been 1/3 of the story at most. The majority of the story should have been focused on Beowulf. Could you imagine if Filia's Origin Story had the first 2 chapters be entirely her parents talking about how Marcus left the Mafia, only to show Filia meeting Samson in the last chapter, and then showing Marie's attack and her parents being murdered on a "montage" on a goddamn TV screen?
  
  
• Following on from that, the most interesting part of his history, the Grendel fight, was not shown AT ALL. The lead-up to his fight with Grendel would have been the perfect opportunity to give a wider look at the SG universe, especially wartime Canopy Kingdom and the tensions between humans and Gigans that led to the Grendel fight being set up by the Reniors with the help of the Medici. Did Beowulf have any reservations about that fight? Was he terrified? Excited? Did he really know, as Double taunted him, that Grendel was drugged and his victory was hollow? We know that, behind his nonchalant facade, Beowulf was deeply distressed by having killed Grendel and his Mother. They could have shown his grief and guilt that led to him retiring from wrestling and trying to go into entertainment. It would have led him to organically meet Annie for the first time when he was on her TV show, not the random encounter we got, and they could have had a much more meaningful conversation.
  
  
• The Annie encounter we did get was felt completely random and pointless. Why was Annie even hanging around in a random amateur wrestling match? Why did she decide to approach him and give him some cryptic advice? There was no reason she would have known he was involved with Double or his "destiny". In Beo's main game's story, it made sense for Annie to approach him given their past history and the fact that he was trying to chase down the Skullgirl. This is just another forced encounter with a named character that led nowhere
  
  
• The scene with Double killing Veleno also felt pointless. Even assuming Beowulf has a destiny, presumably to fight Grendel, become washed-up and reappear in the events of the main game, what does killing Veleno have do with accomplishing it? The Grendel fight was facilitated by the Medici, and if Beo had been wrestling for the Medici, he would still have fought Grendel eventually. Seems like the whole thing is just for shock value and for Veleno to get comeuppance for what he did to Theo, but they could have done that without Double's involvement
  
  
• Aside from issues with storywriting, the technical implementation also felt underwhelming. Minor bugs in the dialogues aside, on my Android version, apparently Autumn had not figured out how to keep the display on during cutscenes, so it would go to sleep in the middle, unless I keep tapping the screen to keep it awake. I get that the scenes are spoken and are supposed to be listened to, but the lack of subtitles isn't exactly accessible to hard-of-hearing people, and even for me with the sounds on, there were some dialogues that were difficult to figure out. I still can't make out what the hell the announcer says in the first scene where Veleno breaks Theo's leg.

Having said all that, the story is not bad. The interactions with Theo and Elaine were nice. The lines were competently written for the most part which is a major improvement to the atrocity that was the intro to Shards of the Undying. Beo's quips were fun. Kai and Erica did a great job with the voice acting, which they covered various roles. The artworks were good and the animations really bring the story to life, even if I'm not a fan of the animation style. I'm sure the majority of Mobile players would enjoy it. I hope this release of content get players excited and helps keep SGM development alive, and proves to Autumn that there is real demand for story contents.

Unfortunately, as someone who is particular about SG lore, I don't think this content was made with consideration for fans like me, so Tim's words from the BTS interview rings hollow. I don't view this story as a canon entry into the SG universe and I won't be following any more lore-related outputs from Autumn Games, unless something drastically changes in their attitude to lore-keeping and their way-of-working for storywriting.

I doubt anyone from Autumn would ever read my ramblings or give much value to it, but if they do: You have inherited the development of one of the most interesting game universes, with a long-established lore and passionate fans. I know you must have seen the prior works of previous devs who have tirelessly worked to preserve the original vision of the creators and made sure that the various stories in the Skullgirls universe are part of a more-or-less consistent tapestry of lore and history, which reward deep readings and understandings. We are the people who have stuck with Skullgirls for years, some over a decade. If you care to, you can talk to us. If you put in the time and resources to understand the lore and write stories that speak to us, we will put in the time and resources to support you.

Chrono_Tata said:

Unfortunately, as someone who is particular about SG lore, I don't think this content was made with consideration for fans like me, so Tim's words from the BTS interview rings hollow. I don't view this story as a canon entry into the SG universe and I won't be following any more lore-related outputs from Autumn Games, unless something drastically changes in their attitude to lore-keeping and their way-of-working for storywriting.

Damn, I didn't know there were that many errors and contradictions (When I played it, I just found some of them lol). I kind of have the same opinion; the story had some good scenes, but some things, like the animations and contradictions, are horrible. I also prefer to view this story as non-canon or maybe from another universe that doesn't follow the main universe canon. Great analysis!

Holy lord I didn't know it was like this. I'm really hoping that the criticism provided by fans who pay attention to lore will be recognised and treated earnestly. i also really hope that no one tries to go in guns blazing with their critiques. Less "what a load of shit fuck" and more "what a load of fixable shitfuck that can be evaluated and learned from overtime". This definitely got me more interested in piecing together the lore of Skullgirls more for myself. Playing through the different storymodes and piecing things together from different events and perspectives is one of the best aspects of the game for me.

Chrono_Tata said:

So, my more-or-less full thought on the Beowulf Origin Story. People say that the complement sandwich method of critique is not helpful, so I'll just go ahead and get the worst part of my criticisms out of the way first. Needless to say, the below text contains spoilers.

TL;DR: personally, I think this story is a travesty for Skullgirls lore, and honestly it's just not a great story, but it is perfectly serviceable one if you ignore that and I think most casual fans will like it

It has become clear to me now that there is no one at Autumn Games, or whatever external parties are involved with the creation of this story, that cares about established lore. Here are the worst offenders:

• The story began 38 years ago, a year before Beowulf was born. (Thankfully, getting Beo's age of 37 correct was the least they could do). A refresher: the current story takes place 7 years after the end of the Grand War, which raged for approximately a decade. So, this is set way before the War started.
  
  
• Lorenzo comes to threaten Theo, Beo's father, to force him to throw a match against Veleno, a Medici-affiliated wrestler. The awkwardness of the head of the most powerful crime family to come personally threaten a wrestler aside, he also brought Black Dahlia with him. The problem is: Black Dahlia was originally a ASG soldier, who eventually defected to the Medici after working for the Labs for some time. The ASG Labs would have been established around the start of the Grand War, since it was financed by King Franz's government in exchange for them building weapons for the Canopian Military. Needless to say, the Labs should not even have existed yet at this time, let alone having produced Dahlia in her current state.
  
  
• Even if the Labs did exist then, it is extremely unlikely that Black Dahlia would be working for the Medici yet. And EVEN if we see Dahlia then, who is said to be around 50-60 years old now, she would have been in her 20s at most, not her current appearance as an older woman. Apparently the writers don't know that Dahlia is not immortal like Lorenzo
  
  
• The timeline and lore error of the ASG Labs' existence is further emphasised by Elaine, Beo's mother, being recommended to join "Lab Zero Clinic" for treatment. We know that, even while the ASG Labs exist, the existence of Lab 0 is top secret, since they conduct extremely dangerous researches on Skullgirl blood. Completely asinine to think that they would open a public clinic calling themselves "Lab Zero", again displaying ignorance on the writers' part about the role and history of the ASG Labs
  
  
• Worse still, the person who recommended Elaine to go there was Sister Agatha, i.e. Double. There are 2 problems with this. Firstly, why on earth would Double be helping the work of the ASG Labs, when it has been clear that she is antagonistic to them, as seen by her attacking Lab 8 in the 2E timeline. Secondly, we know that Double needs to keep a low profile and stay hidden in order to influence and manipulate people in New Meridian. We know that Sister Agatha is the current disguise of Double in the present timeline, 38 years later. Why would Double be disguised as the same young nun, using the same name, for all that time? It's not like this is an on-and-off disguise she uses either, because we also see Sister Agatha appear again in another scene 9 years later, and another a few more years later with grown-up Beowulf. In that time we see Veleno age from a young wrestler to an old man. Surely someone would notice the weird immortal nun that has looked the same for 40 years?
  
  
• This is a minor one but still a bit annoying. Chapter 2 takes place in River King Casino, even though River King Casino is not built until at least 16 years before the current timeline, established in Big Band's story. The story isn't specifically stated to be happening there, so River King Casino could be used just as a placeholder, but still there could be other locations that could have been used instead such as the Medici Tower or the NWA Arena (which we don't know exactly when it was built) that would have fit with the timeline
  
  
• Another minor one: Veleno exclaims "God, he looks just like [Theo]" when seeing grown-up Beo. The main religion of Canopy is Trinitism, which worships the 3 Goddesses. We have seen in previous stories that people use the term Goddesses or at least just one Goddess, not God, when invoking their dieties. Even if it's relatively minor it shows the lack of care when considering the universe and its established lore
  
  
• Weird retcon: Double, for some reason, got involved with Beo's family, in order to get him to fulfill some sort of "destiny", when we have seen in his 2E story that Double only sees him as a useful idiot who she can sic on ASG soldiers in order to slow them down, and whom she tried to murder once he stopped listening to "Zane". This is not a man with some destiny to fulfill, and that's not a bad thing. More on this later.

These are, at best, conscious retcons, or, at worst, outright errors and contradictions (I would bet on the latter). Separately, the below are my criticisms on the story writing itself and some of the softer retcons that I think have made Beowulf's lore worse:

• The whole Lab Zero Clinic subplot is either a pointless red herring, or a bad retcon that has made Beo, in my opinion, a less interesting character. Assuming it was intentional, I think the intention of the writer was to show that Elaine went to Lab 0 and received some sort of experimental treatment, which caused Beo to become enhanced with superhuman strength. If this is the case, then I think it does a huge disservice to Beowulf's character. The most unique thing about Beo on the Skullgirls roster was that he is a completely regular human, wielding a normal but sturdy chair, but through sheer willpower and training, allows him to go toe-to-toe against fighters enhanced by magic and science, or wielding supernatural weapons. Having him be another experiment with power derived from the ASG Labs makes him so much less unique
  
  
• If the Lab 0 connection is not related to him becoming enhanced, then it's just a completely dumb story point. You'd think if she went and got some experimental drugs from some shady lab, they could at least have provided them for free or intern her as a test subject. Why the hell is she even out and their family going broke from paying for doctors? What would be the point of going to the Labs at all?
  
  
• Another stupid retcon is changing Beo from a wrestler who carves his own path through life to be some sort of long-term project of Double. Again, I think this makes him much less unique in the cast, when we already have other characters like Umbrella that has this attribute.
  
  
• This also includes Double basically indirectly giving him the Hurting. It feels like the writers really fail to understand what makes Beowulf compelling, and believe that the only way to make him important to the plot is that he must have some predetermined destiny, superhuman power, and a special weapon given to him. What a miserable way to try to "fix" a character in the exact aspects didn't need fixing.
  
  
• Beowulf's lore was a completely blank slate, and this would have been a perfect opportunity for Autumn to do something truly unique with him. But, nope, now Beo is just another sad orphan whose misfortune derived from the actions of the Medici Mafia. Now he joins the packed club of Filia, Squigly, Ms. Fortune, Peacock, Marie. To a lesser extents, Cerebella (manipulated by the Medici but we don't know how exactly she became an orphan) and Painwheel (not technically an orphan but at least disowned in her story). Sure, the Medici are the main antagonistic force in New Meridian, but they could have done ANYTHING with his story. His family didn't even originally had to be from New Meridian. Completely wasted potential.
  
  
• Not to mention the "down-on-his-luck fighter who needs to work for the Mafia" is such a cliche story. It's not "bad" in vacuum and it's a trope for a reason, but along with all the other issues it just makes the story so much more boring
  
  
• A fundamental issue with this story is that it doesn't even feel like a "Beowulf story". Hell, he didn't exist in the first chapter and was barely a character in the second. He really only appeared in the final chapter and didn't do anything much apart from making some funny quips. Theo and Elaine are good characters and their interactions were nice to read, but that should have been 1/3 of the story at most. The majority of the story should have been focused on Beowulf. Could you imagine if Filia's Origin Story had the first 2 chapters be entirely her parents talking about how Marcus left the Mafia, only to show Filia meeting Samson in the last chapter, and then showing Marie's attack and her parents being murdered on a "montage" on a goddamn TV screen?
  
  
• Following on from that, the most interesting part of his history, the Grendel fight, was not shown AT ALL. The lead-up to his fight with Grendel would have been the perfect opportunity to give a wider look at the SG universe, especially wartime Canopy Kingdom and the tensions between humans and Gigans that led to the Grendel fight being set up by the Reniors with the help of the Medici. Did Beowulf have any reservations about that fight? Was he terrified? Excited? Did he really know, as Double taunted him, that Grendel was drugged and his victory was hollow? We know that, behind his nonchalant facade, Beowulf was deeply distressed by having killed Grendel and his Mother. They could have shown his grief and guilt that led to him retiring from wrestling and trying to go into entertainment. It would have led him to organically meet Annie for the first time when he was on her TV show, not the random encounter we got, and they could have had a much more meaningful conversation.
  
  
• The Annie encounter we did get was felt completely random and pointless. Why was Annie even hanging around in a random amateur wrestling match? Why did she decide to approach him and give him some cryptic advice? There was no reason she would have known he was involved with Double or his "destiny". In Beo's main game's story, it made sense for Annie to approach him given their past history and the fact that he was trying to chase down the Skullgirl. This is just another forced encounter with a named character that led nowhere
  
  
• The scene with Double killing Veleno also felt pointless. Even assuming Beowulf has a destiny, presumably to fight Grendel, become washed-up and reappear in the events of the main game, what does killing Veleno have do with accomplishing it? The Grendel fight was facilitated by the Medici, and if Beo had been wrestling for the Medici, he would still have fought Grendel eventually. Seems like the whole thing is just for shock value and for Veleno to get comeuppance for what he did to Theo, but they could have done that without Double's involvement
  
  
• Aside from issues with storywriting, the technical implementation also felt underwhelming. Minor bugs in the dialogues aside, on my Android version, apparently Autumn had not figured out how to keep the display on during cutscenes, so it would go to sleep in the middle, unless I keep tapping the screen to keep it awake. I get that the scenes are spoken and are supposed to be listened to, but the lack of subtitles isn't exactly accessible to hard-of-hearing people, and even for me with the sounds on, there were some dialogues that were difficult to figure out. I still can't make out what the hell the announcer says in the first scene where Veleno breaks Theo's leg.

Having said all that, the story is not bad. The interactions with Theo and Elaine were nice. The lines were competently written for the most part which is a major improvement to the atrocity that was the intro to Shards of the Undying. Beo's quips were fun. Kai and Erica did a great job with the voice acting, which they covered various roles. The artworks were good and the animations really bring the story to life, even if I'm not a fan of the animation style. I'm sure the majority of Mobile players would enjoy it. I hope this release of content get players excited and helps keep SGM development alive, and proves to Autumn that there is real demand for story contents.

Unfortunately, as someone who is particular about SG lore, I don't think this content was made with consideration for fans like me, so Tim's words from the BTS interview rings hollow. I don't view this story as a canon entry into the SG universe and I won't be following any more lore-related outputs from Autumn Games, unless something drastically changes in their attitude to lore-keeping and their way-of-working for storywriting.

I doubt anyone from Autumn would ever read my ramblings or give much value to it, but if they do: You have inherited the development of one of the most interesting game universes, with a long-established lore and passionate fans. I know you must have seen the prior works of previous devs who have tirelessly worked to preserve the original vision of the creators and made sure that the various stories in the Skullgirls universe are part of a more-or-less consistent tapestry of lore and history, which reward deep readings and understandings. We are the people who have stuck with Skullgirls for years, some over a decade. If you care to, you can talk to us. If you put in the time and resources to understand the lore and write stories that speak to us, we will put in the time and resources to support you.

Reading this was a wild ride. I really wonder what material they were given when creating the story. Was this collective misunderstanding or did someone at Autumn Games give them a very... very brief synopsis...

Chrono_Tata said:

The story began 38 years ago, a year before Beowulf was born. (Thankfully, getting Beo's age of 37 correct was the least they could do). A refresher: the current story takes place 7 years after the end of the Grand War, which raged for approximately a decade. So, this is set way before the War started.

Fun fact about this one: the translation I played mixed the age thing up. It had the story happening 28 years before the main events (the timeskip thing was janky, too).

I have mixed feelings about the story mode. There's some amazing details, but the story feels so lacking. I didn't like the fact that they went with the "poor orphaned boy" for Beowulf, and I was puzzled by Double and Black Dahlia's appearances. Also, no Zane. No Grendel. The whole "destiny" subplot was weird and led essentially nowhere (and Chrono_Tata made some great points why it doesn't work at all). It is enjoyable to play, but the story quality is not good. Was there really any story at all?

To think now that people were angry at Hidden Variable for "ruining the story"... Well, it was weird.

Also, lack of subtitles is a big problem. Some people are not native in English, you know...

Money_Lover said:

I think invincible TikTok edits put more effort into animation than any of these "cutscenes" btw. The art they use is ok but the way they """rigged""" them is genuinely ugly.

Yeah, the rigged animation was my main problem with the art direction on this story. They also did similar kinds of animation for their social media posts. One that stood out particularly to me was the announcement for Guilds where they just showed the boss Eliza just... wobbling from side to side menacingly.


There were some scenes that didn't look too bad, but they definitely could have been improved with just traditional animation or just static images with transitions.

Money_Lover said:

I was wondering if they based his origin story off anything the original devs said about him but it seems like they were making shit up on the spot

Honestly I think most was probably newly written, especially with the whole retcon of him being groomed by Double for some destiny.

Money_Lover said:

new devs have no soul bro they prolly don't care they get paid

Some people in the community have talked to the new devs and, based on such accounts, they seem to be sincere people who genuinely want both SGM and 2E to do well. They were present at Frosty Faustings, which they didn't have to be, and listened to people's feedback.

Obviously they aren't fans in the same way as we are, but they have every reason to want the game to succeed, at the very least for business reasons. I am disappointed they basically wrote an entire story without a proper understanding of lore, but I want to be open-minded and give them a fair shot if they are willing to take my criticism and change their approach. I'm happy to see that for the most part, they are at least doing a decent job at keeping the lights on for Mobile and they do deliver on their promises more-or-less on time, particularly Guilds and a new Origin Story. But they need to take the art and lore aspects more seriously and deliver better quality of work, because that's what the more dedicated fans also care about.

I also want to give a shout-out to Kai who responded to the complaints I posted on the Mobile Discord, where he said he will try to advocate for better lore keeping, with possibility of fan involvement, in the future with the devs. So there might be some hope yet, but I'm not getting my expectations up.

spooky-clown posse said:

Reading this was a wild ride. I really wonder what material they were given when creating the story. Was this collective misunderstanding or did someone at Autumn Games give them a very... very brief synopsis...

My guess is that the writer was given some notes on the lore and the guideline on how his character should be and basically just filled in the details. The problem is the writer clearly doesn't know SG lore deeply, so a lot of the details are not consistent with established lore, and there was no knowledgeable editor with enough influence to guide and suggest edits to the story accordingly.

This same problem happened with the Webtoon, where they brought in a writer who was completely new to SG lore and was given notes and story guidelines. At that time, HVS lore keepers were still working on the game, but apparently they didn't have enough direct involvement in story writing for the Webtoon until it was too late, which is why there were several lore inconsistencies there.

Holy Goose said:

Fun fact about this one: the translation I played mixed the age thing up. It had the story happening 28 years before the main events (the timeskip thing was janky, too).

Yeah lol I heard that in the Spanish translation, they mistranslated the "38 years ago" timeline. I sort of wonder if they originally wrote it to actually be 28 years ago, until someone pointed out that Beo is supposed to be 37 and they hastily changed the English text, but didn't bother to change the translations which were already made. There was sort of a similar problem with the Japanese translations for the original character bios, where they actually translated earlier versions of the bios and didn't update them along with the main English version.

The story originally written to be 28 years ago might partially explain the weird timelines. Maybe the writer didn't write it with the intention of it taking place that long ago.

Holy Goose said:

Also, lack of subtitles is a big problem. Some people are not native in English, you know...

Yeah even as someone who understands English I was struggling with some parts. Had to replay the scenes a few times to catch everything.

Holy Goose said:

To think now that people were angry at Hidden Variable for "ruining the story"... Well, it was weird.

I definitely have some disagreements with certain directions HVS took with the Season 1 stories, but for the most parts I think they respected lore consistencies and you could see the efforts to reconcile retcons as much as possible with known lore (to varying degrees of success imho). For Beo Origin Story though it just felt like little effort was put into it, which was the most frustrating thing to me.