I've completed the first three chapters of the main story, and the option to continue on to chapter 4 is grayed out. It says 'unavailable.' In Japan there are six chapters of the story, but apparently the English version stops here.
There's no telling when or if more chapters will be added, so there's not much left to do in this game. I did manage to get 5 of the 6 girls in my plot party, the girls of squad 31-a, the main characters, to have SS memoria. Only Megumi is lacking, but at least she's an S memoria.
There are lots of ways to get stronger in this game, but there's no point getting stronger if I can already access all the current plot with my current strength. After that, there's just some cute short 'event stories' that cover small events and minor characters in greater depth. Also 'recollections' which are basically conversations. I'm sure these are worth playing, but frantically and nonstop? That's hard to argue for. More like something I should do every now and then while I wait for more actual content to arrive.
Certainly this chapter 3 ending is unsatisfying. I can't say an unfinished game like this is a good game or a good visual novel, whichever way you want to define it. We'll have to wait and see if it becomes good in the future.
I have no shortage of things to do, what with my Disney+ subscription, Dragon Quest 3 2d-hd, and my book and music hall of fame to finally finish. I can give Heaven a rest.
Russia's offensive is focused in the southeast seemingly just because that's the easiest place to gain ground. There's nothing of strategic interest or value there, so Ukraine clearly hasn't put as much effort or resources into defending it. I rate Russia's progress in the war by the 5 strongholds I want to see them take -- Kupiansk, Siversk, Toretsk, Chasiv Yar and Pokrovsk. Siversk and Pokrovsk they haven't even reached yet. Kupiansk, Toretsk and Chasiv Yar they've been bogged down fighting in for ages. Russia actually had already taken Kupiansk before they lost it. So that means Ukraine is 5 of 5, winning 5 out of all decisive 5 conflicts. Russia isn't even 0 out of 5, it's -1 out of 5. I can't describe that as 'winning.'
You could say Russia 'isn't losing,' because it isn't losing ground anymore. But if you measure territory gained since May of 2022 I suspect Russia has lost more territory than it has gained. So all Russia has managed is to go from 'losing' to 'no longer losing.' It's hard to get excited by this enormous improvement in the situation.
The problem is Russia can't afford to not win this war. A ceasefire or freeze of the conflict is unacceptable. Any ceasefire will just be used to rearm and remobilize a new Ukrainian army which will then start a new war on a better footing than it currently has. Russia must press its advantage in manpower and industrial capacity now while it still has it. Ukraine must be permanently neutered, either by conquering it entirely or by Ukraine agreeing to demilitarize, not join NATO, and not allow foreign troops or weapons on its soil. This is necessary first off because Ukraine has shown its willingness to attack Russia the moment it does have a military for the past 10 years, and because a nation lives or dies by its credibility. If Russia can no longer deter anyone with threats, then Russia will cease to be a sovereign nation. That's just the way statehood works.
If people learn that you can do whatever you want to Russia, like Ukraine has, that you can intentionally mass murder its civilians and prisoners, that you can threaten to invade and conquer its territory, that you can invade and conquer its territory (see Kursk), that you can shoot missiles and drones anywhere in Russia, including Moscow, that you can develop bioweapons and nukes to use against Russia, that you can blow up their pipelines, that you can surround Russia with trade blockades and stir up rebellions and civil wars and oust the leaders of all of Russia's allies and turn them against Russia and sanction Russia and steal their assets held in foreign banks -- if you can do all this and get away with it, if this doesn't lead to your extinction, then Russia is no longer a sovereign state with a seat at the table, it's a whipped dog you can do whatever you want to for the rest of time. And that 'rest of time' probably won't be long, as it will probably just fade into nonexistence like the whipped dog Ottoman Empire after it lost multiple wars in a row.
The world needs to learn that if Ukraine or anyone else fucks with Russia, they will cease to exist, while Russia will remain and actually become stronger than ever. After that everyone will treat Russia's concerns and interests with newfound respect. Suddenly the missile bases ringing Russia that Russia has been objecting to for the last twenty years will be dismantled, because actions speak louder than words. The mistreatment of Russia's ally, Syria, will end. The money the west stole from Russia will be returned, the sanctions will be dropped, the ICC case against Putin will be dropped, Russia will be invited back to the Olympics and the World Cup, and so on. Winners are treated like winners, and losers are treated like losers. This is the eternal law of reality in this world. Everything becomes legal if you win. All the rhetoric about 'brutal and unprovoked,' 'dictator,' 'war criminal,' 'Hitler,' etc., all of that vanishes so long as you win. If Russia wins history will be written to reflect that, showing that Russia was always in the right from the beginning. History is written by the victors.
The reason the Nazis are unforgivable and the greatest villains in history isn't because they gassed Jews or invaded Poland or whatever. Their unforgivable sin was losing the war. If they had won the war you can bet all the historical chronicles would have spoken in glowing terms towards Hitler and the Third Reich.
The Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin killed more innocent people than Nazi Germany but it was always treated with respect until 1992. The west didn't dare do anything the Soviet Union objected to, they let the Soviet Union host the Olympics, much less attend them. They certainly didn't shoot the Soviet Union with missiles. They used respectful terms and rhetoric when talking about the USSR. Look at all the James Bond movies -- they romanticize Russian spies and always show the USSR in a good light as a voice of reason that doesn't seek nuclear war. Why was the USSR treated so well when they were manifestly more evil than Nazi Germany? It's very simple -- because the USSR won. First they won the Russian Civil War against the Whites, then they won World War II. Only after they lost the Cold War did it become suddenly permissible to insult, deride, ignore and abuse Russia. When before the west was content with Russia owning half of Germany, now Russia didn't even deserve to own the land they've owned since before America existed. And they don't deserve to own that land so much that we're willing to nuke them to stop them from having their own land which they've possessed for centuries and voted to be a part of them with over 90% approval. Where does this change in perspective come from? Did we suddenly realize in 1993 that it's evil for Russia to own land west of Rostov? Or did the USSR losing the Cold War make us contemptuous of Russia to the point that we no longer cared one whit about their interests and henceforth did whatever we liked to them?
What model of reality better fits the facts? A sudden moral enlightenment realizing that territorial integrity is the highest priority on Earth, worth sacrificing all life on Earth over? Or a generalized contempt for Russia after they lost a war, much like the contempt we show for Nazi Germany, the Confederacy, the Ottoman Empire, the Aztecs and the Byzantines?
Russia can't afford to lose two wars in a row. Whatever residual respect it still has for winning the Chechen war and the Georgian war and the Syrian war and World War II, which gives it what little deterrence it has against even more extreme abuse, will evaporate entirely. Russia will have no allies and no friends (who wants to attach themselves to a sinking ship?), and every single nation on its border will become an enemy looking to annex pieces of Russia. There will also be internal rebellions as pieces of Russia decide to fission off from the main. No one on Earth, inside or outside Russia, will ever respect them again.
The moment Putin invaded Ukraine he should have known that he had bet Russia's fate on the outcome of this war. If the mighty Russia, the second greatest military power on Earth, couldn't beat lowly Ukraine, one of the most backwards shitholes on Earth, then it couldn't beat anyone and no longer needs to be treated with the respect due a hamster. Then Russia was a paper tiger all along. If Russia wants to change the world's opinion of Russia after losing the Cold War, it must win the Ukraine war. This would show that Russia has changed and is stronger than the decrepit communists of yesteryear, or at least that however far Russia has fallen, it hasn't fallen so far that it can't beat the likes of Ukraine in its own backyard. Everyone would update accordingly and Russia would be the top dog in the region for the next 50 years.
This would give Russia the security it needs to continue developing an alternative moral future for mankind -- one without poisonous liberal values like atheism, LGBT+, feminism, Black Lives Matter and shit -- while still accepting useful innovations like science, technology, good art and capitalism. Russia's economy is growing rapidly. Eventually its per capita GDP will catch up with the richest nations of Europe and it will give its people a first world standard of living. Its technology is, in many aspects, ahead of the West. If it wins this war the people inside the nation will lean in to the values Russia stands for during the war, and the people outside the nation will stay out of Russia's business and not try to stop them from this lean in. While the rest of the world is flooded with non-white immigrants and entire generations become sexual deviants, Russia will become an island of white sanity that conservatives from every corner of the globe can flock to. Russia could eventually become the best place to live on Earth. So long as it wins.
When the stakes are so high, I really wish Putin would start taking his war seriously. -1 out of 5 isn't good enough. A stalemate with Ukraine isn't good enough. A ceasefire with Ukraine isn't good enough. Ukraine joining NATO 20 years from now isn't good enough. None of this establishes Russia as a serious nation with credible deterrence that must be treated with respect. Only complete victory and the accomplishment of all stated goals establishes worldwide respect. As Machiavelli said, a ruler doesn't need to be loved but he must be feared. If Trump thinks he's going to make peace in Ukraine by not giving Russia any of their demands, then Putin must disabuse him of his fantasies. And if Trump, or Britain or France or whoever think they can send their army to Ukraine and force Putin to surrender, then he must defeat them too. He must do whatever it takes to win completely, such that the other side admits they lost. Such that the history books record Russia as the winner of this war.
That means fielding more troops and equipping them with more and better weapons. It means overwhelming and destroying the Ukrainian army. Not this trickle of a few square kilometers a day or 1,000 casualties a day, such that Russia might win in 800 years. Such overwhelming force that it's all decided in a month. This is how the war should have been approached from the very beginning. If Putin had started the war on this basis he could've won the war at a far lower price with far fewer losses than he has now. Even now this strategy of arming 20 million Russians and attacking from all sides (including the entire border of Belarus), overwhelming and conquering every square inch of Ukraine, is still the better strategy, and probably the only strategy, that can ever lead to victory.
Russia should be mobilizing like the USSR did in World War 2. It should be a total war with survival on the line, like it was in 1941. It should do whatever it takes in order to win, like it did back then. Putin doesn't seem, even now, to realize the gravity of his actions or their implications. He's treating this war like a summer cruise or an adventure when it is every bit as deadly dangerous as Nazi Germany conquering the Soviet Union was. If Moscow being bombarded with cruise missiles isn't enough to wake him up, I don't know what is. He seems to be catatonic. Like I suggested years ago, it's time to replace Putin with some other Russian who's actually willing to fight this war. As things stand, with Putin in charge, Russia will never win. And Russia needs to win this war. A tie isn't good enough. The west must be humiliated and forced to admit it failed completely and utterly. That its philosophy and way of life was inferior to Russia's because when push comes to shove Russia can beat it in a fight. This is a lesson the whole world needs to learn. In addition, the whole world needs to learn that America can no longer bully whoever it likes on Earth and willy-nilly violate international law while hypocritically demanding other people uphold it. Russia needs to liberate the whole world from American tyranny and create a new world order, a new world justice, where all states are treated equally and held to account for their deeds. One where Israel can't genocide Palestinians directly in all our faces and we pretend it isn't happening, while simultaneously pretending Russia and China are committing genocides and are these monstrous bogeymen when they're actually the best hope for mankind.
Nobody thinks they should have to save the world or fight for their nation's survival, but occasionally it happens. It happened to Nazi Germany, the Confederacy, and the USSR, and now it's happened to Russia. When the bell tolls you must fight, whether that's painful or inconvenient or not. The alternative is far worse. This is Russia's moment. Like how Churchill spoke about how this was the U.K.'s moment, it was do or die for Britain, it had to win World War II. Well, now Putin needs to start speaking like Churchill to his people and motivate them to total war, and then like Churchill fight a total war, because this is Russia's last chance. It can't retreat any further than it already has. All the way from Berlin to Rostov, it's already lost millions of square kilometers and all the prestige it can possibly afford. There is nowhere left to run. It must fight. And it must fight for real, not this pussyfooting around.
Maybe Russia wants to die and doesn't care about its future. If so, fine. It can just keep doing what it's doing. I'm an American so it doesn't affect me. But what it's done so far is pathetic and isn't earning anyone's respect. Even as the war proceeds people are losing respect for Russia day by day. Before they weren't willing to send tanks to Ukraine. Then they weren't willing to send planes. Then they weren't willing to send missiles. Currently they aren't willing to send nukes to Ukraine or armies to Ukraine, but for how much longer? As Russia continuously loses respect because it can't beat lowly Ukraine, the shittiest corner of the world, nations become more willing to abuse Russia by the day. Russia was more feared before they invaded Ukraine than after. That's the exact opposite of the entire purpose of starting this war. Russia invaded Ukraine to reestablish credibility. Instead it has lost credibility, and all because of their weak sauce method of warfare. I can only give them so much good advice before the window of opportunity has passed and they are locked into being eternal losers. And then the history books will write about Putin like they write about Hitler, and it will only be Putin to blame for it.
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