Has the requirements to tame Jarrod changed? I'm choosing all the (admittedly old) right answers, and it won't give me the "I'm aghast" option to help tame him at the end
During his meeting, you have to pick "I would advise you against telling women you find the idea of having a wife limiting and a bother" and head to the training room after. If you have the correct version to eventually friendzone him, he will be seen yelling at a servant which awards +5 courage and manipulation (important to end up reforming him in the end!).
To prevent being rivals with him, you will have to reach for a high 450 persuasion but I hope this helps solve your problem!
Has anyone else gotten the impression that the strongest fighter in the game isn't Anaele, but Jasper instead? I didn't pay much attention when I first played the demo but now that the full game is out and multiple people besides just the delegates keep mentioning that Jasper will arrange an assassination/duel people to the death/beat people up if the MC isn't treated well, I am suspecting that he is hiding some serious moves. I also totally didn't imagine it that when the delegates were arguing outside the MC's room, those two thumps before Jasper walked in were Jasper teaching them a lesson in disturbing his charge's rest.
okay their ending was quite easy to get late game, especially compared to Avalie's and Jasper's. But overall their ending is one of the better ones
tart with max manipulation and some charm (need for Jarrod's route)
Romance Gisette fully
Immoral Mc (A MUST)
Lead Jarrod on, like get his date pick the right choices, visit him week 2, give him a gift. But also get 500 persuasion, so you can reject him but still remain friends.
Don't forget to complete the rebel's chain.
OK I must just be dumb because even Avalie and all Legendary was pretty easy for me (once I read all the guides out there lol)
I did all of that already, I choose to side with the Revaire royals, then I still get a scene with Sarya as if I'm not betraying her, then she and Clarmont gets poisoned, and I have no idea what to do during negotiations. I always choose "Talk about the positives" and "Gain allies for current regime" but it always end in war and Jarrod dies T_T
Also, I think it's beauty that helps on Jarrod's route, not charm. He's a shallow idiot
Update: I FINALLY realized what I was doing wrong! I just needed to find the rebel chain without having high approval or Sarya's confession! Also not having Katie's legacy as my public ambition (while having another secret one) might've helped.
Hi, I'm late to the party (only found the game last year so the wait wasn't that long for me) and I just wanna say how much I enjoy this game and appreciate Aly's hard work creating it! I've finally finished my master plans for each background to get the best possible ending! It was a wild ride from start to end (tho not really ending because I'll definitely replay a lot)
P.S. Looking forward to the full release so I can hopefully romance Gisette as a Rebel Leader, the angsty potential!
I've been playing and playing for days now and still uncovering new stuff -- and new stuff that makes me squeal in delight. In the past few days, I:
- got Hamin's break-up scene and backstory, which I didn't expect to be the way it was at <i>all</i> and made me <i>so</i> happy.
- got a variation on Lisle's gazebo chat scene with a MC that happened to be have a certain something in common with him and ohhh my gosh his happiness at remembering he's not alone warmed my heart so much.
- finally got Avalie, my beloved, to be my ally and she's SO CUTE and funny complaining about it (and I also got Penny and Cordelia's epilogues at the same time as hers, which I didn't know could happen!).
- got really emotional over the descriptions of what peaceful exchange does for countries and people, it's so beautiful and hopeful and lovely. I especially appreciate how Arland's religion is regarded as something valuable and interesting, and not something they need to learn to leave behind to be enlightened by Jiyel's rationality (I'm not religious myself, but fascinated and admirative of it in all forms, it's truly a beautiful thing!).
- blackmailed Zarad and it was awful (but so cool).
- got killed by Gisette and it was great.
- blackmailed and fooled Gisette and that was great also (I love her).
- finished Clarmont's route, mostly just as an interesting route to pursue while checking out and completing different Revaire variations, but... even though he was always around the bottom of my ranking of favourite ROs, he turned out to be soooo cute ohhhh my goshhh I appreciate him so much more (my pirate called him Clary!!!!).
- just started Lyon's route and am already squealing as well at how cute he turns out to be so fast. Dearly looking forward to how he's going to surprise and make me melt, like every other RO has surpassed my expectations.
And there's still some variations and a few entire routes I haven't even started!
Once more, Aly, thank you so much for this game, your character-writing is so so good and the story and the philosophies in it are so so good, I love this game so much.
Yeah as soon as I saw the option "be tried as war criminals" I thought "she's definitely gonna stab me for this". But you know what, kinda worth it ( me a simp for hot morally complicated women)
Poor Clarmont...but I get it, gotta complete all the possible routes even if they're horrible lol. I really wanted the manipulation bonus for Jarrod/Gisette, but felt guilty for Sarya and the rebels. I'll make it up to them in my future playthroughs
I just completely sabotaged everything I could in the negotiations, got a series of gruesome horrible endings after horrible endings... and didn't unlock the "Burn it all down" achievement?? I hope that was just caused by the couple of glitches I encountered, because otherwise... It can get worse than this??
(I suppose not everyone had died and I didn't even blackmail Lisle or Zarad.)
Okay! It took a bunch of trial and error and minor adjustments of the builds I had been playing with in the extended demo for the past few years, but I did it! I have successfully made a MC for each of the six main backgrounds who can:
It took a lot of work and adjustments and all that but I honestly found it really fun trying to to figure out what time to devote where and what could I give up and getting the math just right so I could pull it off. And I finally did! Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to brag a little about managing to get this done!
Yup yup! All without NG+ bonuses! It was a lot of fine tuning and probably the most time I've spent on a calculator and Excel spreadsheets since I graduated from college 😂 No room for error in order to get the stats just right for everything but I managed to pull it off!
My Hise, Corval, and Wellin MCs actually didn't need any changing (thank goodness an ethical Wellin MC can convince Ana for peace in week 6 without 415 persuasion), my Revaire MC needed some minor adjustments so I could have enough persuasion and get enough diplomacy flags to impress the ambassadors and speak up during the week 6 welcome feast, my Arland MC needed some adjustment to be persuasive enough to convince Ana for peace, and my Jiyel MC was the one who needed the most adjustments made to have the persuasion and interpersonal insight necessary for weeks 6 and 7. I can't tell you how many times I had to start over because I was just a TINY bit off from passing a necessary skill check 😭😭😭 But I did it in the end!
I love both of the horrid royal siblings to death but something that's been nagging me really hard is, why can we get a good romance ending with Gisette, but not with Jarrod? There's a route where we try to befriend and deprogram him but it doesn't really go anywhere unless you aim for the Absolute Golden Ending and not get with him in any shape or form, even politically.
I kind of get that his route is supposed to be a twist on the 'taming the bad guy' romance trope, but it feels like a bit of a 'fuck you' given we can play it straight with his sister who's arguably much, much more dangerous. Jarrod is one of the youngest delegates on the island, not particularly smart and indoctrinated to hell and back, but still seems receptive to change if you know how to play him. It's hard for me to see someone like him as irredeemable the way he ends up portrayed in the game. Gisette meanwhile is a cunning and unapologetic plotter who didn't think twice about trying to get us killed, and yet we can get her to soften up and defrost. Isn't she just as big of a risk relationship-wise? Why do we only get punished if we try to get in with her brother?
also ftr I know the poly ending exists but poly's an acquired taste esp given the mild incest vibes in that route
Jarrod isn't irredeemable, just not when he is still in power and still gets what he wants. And you can't romance him if he loses power because he resents you for it, which makes sense as what he feels about an MC that romances him is closer to infatuation than true love.
What I think is the problem here is that the game doesn't indicate you are maintaining a relationship with Jarrod after you get the golden ending for him and Revaire. After all the effort to redeem him, he isn't mentioned as your friend during the friendship section, which is unrewarding and gives players less space for a post-Summit romancing Jarrod headcanon.
I'd love to see Aly add a friendship section in the epilogue for Jarrod, but the game is already so massive and took so long to make, requests should be made in moderation.
To be fair, even in his best ending, Jarrod strikes me as kind of an “out of sight, out of mind” kind of guy. I can’t really see him putting in the effort to write letters and keep up correspondence with anyone who isn’t directly relevant to him - so maybe it would only be viable to stay friends if the MC ends up in Revaire at the end of the game? Not sure if he gets any extra epilogue content on those routes or not.
Jarrod exists, first and foremost, as commentary on misogyny and romanticization of abuse in the genre, which means that any indication that your love for him is capable of changing him undermines the character's reason for existing in the first place. (I specify "your love for him" because outside of physical attraction or the thrill of the chase, I just don't get the feeling he actually likes MC all that much?) He also, frankly, lacks the self-awareness to reflect on the possibility of change as necessary; why would he, if he already gets everything he wants? (Gisette, whatever her other flaws, does not have this problem.)
Edited for formatting/minor rewording.
Popping in a year late to say that I do agree with you on this honestly. I also feel like-while Woodly's romance is consensual and I like it very much, it's kind of weird that the shitty 19 year old gets the Not A Romance But A Commentary On Genre Staples(and to air a personal bugbear of mine, enjoying a shitty man who you can fix in fiction is absolutely not linked to endorsing that in reality and a lot of the criticism of it is both silly and somewhat sexist) and the married guy with children nearing 40 gets a romantic ending(and yes, the relationship is relatively healthy and my Pirate MC. Not to mention the incest subtext in the 3P ending.
It's just a weird bit of picking and choosing. To be clear Aly is an incredible person and an incredible writer, I could NEVER do what she did and I admire her so much, but the context of Woodly, Gisette, and the 3P ending makes me confused enough that I startd thinking about this again and went onto the forums a year later to see if anyone else shared my thoughts.
The 3P ending wasn’t originally planned, it was one of the Kickstarter backer reward requests, so any weirdness there is my failing to adapt a requested route sufficiently well <3 but in my mind and intentions there isn’t any romantic/sexual cross over between Jarrod and Gisette, just a shared understanding and shared MC. This isn’t game of thrones :O
As for Woodly, he was named Stranger Danger early on by the adorable army, a name I immediately adopted and still find hilarious. I agree that he could easily be one of those older guys who hits on young girls while married with an ‘open’ relationship in real life. His role in the game isn’t to be a romantically aspirational route, but rather to present different options for a manipulative character who wants to work situations and people to their advantage. Unlike the real world counterparts, Woodly is only attracted to those MCs who prove socially intelligent and capable. Naive, manipulatable young girls who would be victim to the difference in experience, age and power dynamics are the kind of MC he has no interest in getting close to
Just my 2 cents, as always once a work is out in the world how people see it and react to it are valid despite creator intentions <3
Thank you for your post, I'm happy someone understands and feels the same. I like the shithead taming as a personal power fantasy and would prefer that the writing recognises me as an adult who can tell fantasy from reality rather than patronise me. You don't see media targeted at men who give you a fantasy and then punish you and wag their finger at you for wanting it.
I did my Stranger Danger run with the Widow marrying Lisle in a sham marriage but terrific friendship, then becoming a power couple with Woodly. I'm fairly certain my Widow set out to seduce Woodly every bit as much as he targeted her. I like to think Lisle found someone to make him happy, while she was away on "political business trips" with the prime minister or whatever Woodly's title was. Who cares, so long as the secrets don't get out? I expected Woodly's route to feel kind of icky, but in actuality didn't find it so at all. In fact, it was one of my favorites--no doubt partially due to my head canon about the relationships at the end. I'm glad we were offered a chance to make "wrong" choices. The 'I can fix him' and power fantasy tropes are real. What works great in game doesn't mean that people want to find themselves in that situation IRL. I also liked the 3P ending. I wish I could have had a successful political marriage with Jarrod or even a good romance without the 3P so long as you hit all your friendship and manners teaching levels with him.
Bro I just got the non-standard ending where you run away from the Summit with Hamin, and I'm so glad it's an option. I even like that it's a "bad ending" because the scandal throws the entire Summit into chaos and nixes any chance of peaceful resolutions. I like when games let you take that "third option" or follow through with a bad idea just to see what the consequences would be.
Great game but I have one small bug/complain. :-) [Spoilers!]
There is a mess in epilogue with Avalie. :-) I got her respect and friendship but since I was rping the same bitch as she was :-) I blackmailed (=betrayed) her in the end. And thanks to that in the epilogue I got first the section saying she was making my life miserable (as my now lifelong rival) and then the second part claiming the exact opposite - that she was a powerful ally (as my friend).
In general I think not only one text should be displayed but also adjusted based on our "battles" in game. I defeated her in everything including the trial. So I think I have proven to be an even bigger intrigant. :-) After all that's why she respected me. So I think even as my lifelong rival the text should be less one sided in such case. She might have been making my life miserable but I would surely bite back with equal ferocity and deadliness. :-) And that should be mentioned - imho. ;-) While - of course - the friendship part removed in such case. :-)
I managed to murderize my Widow MC and Ria by romancing Zarad and asking Ria to stay with my MC as her maid on my very 1st play through. We sailed back to Revaire. I knew trouble was brewing, but figured MC would be gone before any revolt. She aced peace for every other area. But, nope. Civil war and a dead MC. Bad, bad ending. Never mentioned Ria, but since she was with MC...?
I do think it odd that Zarad knowing what we know couldn't manage a rescue either on his own or by enlisting Hamin for the job. Sad to miss out on all those NG+ buffs, but oh, well. Did better my 2nd time around.
Is there any way for the Widow MC to make it out of Revaire if war breaks out?