Let's Play Doppelganger: Dawn of the Inverted Soul - I hear it stomps on our feelings

(Guess who has posting privelages~ >D)

Hello~ And welcome to my Let's Play of Doppelganger, Dawn of the Inverted Soul! brainchild of the creator of the Fantasia series, which has some LP's on here. I had been following this game since its opening post on Lemma, so needless to say I was super ecstatic about the fact that was finally out.


Downloads can be found here: http://mementomori.vnovel.com/downloads

It stars Lucia, a protagonist who is rather snobby and made to feel somewhat unlike-able (yay for potential character growth), and the horrific things that have been happening around lately.. dun dun DUUUN. It is a horror visual novel with different routes which may or may not be romantic-like. I'm doing this blind except for the first part which I had demoed out forever ago, so I really don't know much past that.

Woo~ I'm excited, so let's get this (corpse) party started!


So as you can see we start off with some HEAVY FULLSCREEN NARRATION (It's time for your reading skills boys and girls). Specifically that of 'Man'. 'Man' has not been having such a good time lately and does not seem to have very good self esteem.




Don't worry, your friendly neighbor ??? is here to help you with all your woes! Which is so obvious by the very ominous background music I am hearing.


See totally friendly.. and neighborly... :D


Cue bloodcurdling scream


And thus appears our protagonist, awoken by the previously mentioned blood curdling scream, she does not seem to happy about this.


I don't know why, but this line made me giggle. I don't think it was supposed to, but it did.

And then we got a really awesome Opening Video, which I will youtube for you:



You guys ready?

So Lucia, our otome protagonist, wakes up and then goes to eat breakfast, though of course...


If we weren't late we wouldn't be a good protagonist *nods sagely* Lucia is a good daughter though and dutifully sits down and starts eating with the family. Lucia comments that family breakfasts are usually ordinary but today...




Apparently lil' bro is a gossip monger (and sleeps like the dead) according to Lucia's narration. She also mentions her being woken up and says that it sounded like it was coming from the mansion, which I'm going to take a stab is from Japanese unless other cultures also call nice apartment buildings mansions.


Them damn hooligans


According to Protag-Lucia, Bertha is her super awesome possum older sister who her parents adored... until she was... uh... kidnapped and murdered at 13. Ever since, Lucia's Mom has (predictably) been very overprotective


...>_>


Dad agrees about the danger, Mom is adamant and Bro makes this adorable annoyed face (=3=).

But yes, totally serious business we have here, I'm assuming it might have something to do with the premise of the game, maybe even involving our friendly neighbor ???.

Anyway! So everyone is all depressed and awkward so Arthur decides Mission Change the Subject is a-go-go


Ah what?


Or who, that works too.


And he calls himself GOD MODE *cue dramatic sfx*


Dude that can't be legal.


We do not appove of GOD MODE


And Arthur doesn't give two shits what we think lol


Lucia's new aspiration in life.

I love you for playing this.
-- Wait, this is the first playthrough?
So... the only routes right now are...

I'm so excited it's not even funny.

First playthrough and blind, and agghh I want to click the spoiler *slaps hand* I hope to go through it a few times though for the LP so first time is blind and floundering, but after that I attempt routes :D

We then say our goodbyes and head off to school.

GASP THE FOURTH WALL.


Nice to meet you, I am apparently the voice in your head telling you to do things.




AHHH '???' It's too early for the boss battle! DX


Oh different '???' Hello route-able person! Maybe... I haven't checked Donmai's spoiler so maybe not this time around >:


Aspiration shot down.

We also have the need to comment on what a weird color his hair is (This is not Tokimeki, no weird hair colors here D<)


Dude, patience, Lucia needed time to understand the mystery of your hair.


Ah, the first decision point. I'm not quite sure how important these early decision points are, but good place to stop for now(mostly because here is where my practice batch of screenshots stop >_>), so why not put it up to the masses of BF? So should we reject his request and not break our trust with our parents not to get involved with these types (but possibly endanger ourselves to getting beat up), OR shall we say screw it for the sake of our personal safety (and possible route-ness) and accept?

THE DECISION IS IN YOUR HANDS.

REJECT
I mean if you accept it then he's not going to remember your face or anything right and we wanna be special to him because oh gee this white-haired delinquent dude sure does look trustworthy and not shady in the least especially taking into consideration ahaha AHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Sobs quietly while rocking back and forth muttering to self

In this thread, I am going to vote while roleplaying as a madwoman, yes.

Accept!

THIS GAME.

*cackles*

I love this game.

And yes accept

Y o u f o o l s!
Fools fo0ls fOOls FooLs fOolS fools fools!!!
Oh hey this is pretty fun

I say we accept it! There's no harm in delivering a letter, after all.
Watch us be gruesomely murdered trying to deliver a letter.

DON"T DO IT!

Flee, you fools!

REJECTTTTTTTTTTT

*Counts vote*

Accept: |||
Reject: ||

3 to 2, favoring Accepting so that is the winner!

And Donmai, never change <3

TO THE GAME!!!!!!!

As the masses demanded, the little voice in Lucia's head told her to 'Accept'


Come on Lucia, you could look a little more excited, we just watched democracy... IN ACTION!


...D< How rude! (but pretty much true from what we've seen of dear Lucia)

He then leaves an offended Lucia, who fumes a bit before continuing off to the wonderful land of school.



Oh god, I'm having Ocarina of Time flashbacks...hey!hey!listen~!


Oh god we look so adorable there Yay! route-able number two! I think!


Do we do this often? Delinquent!??? seemed to accuse us of this as well. Oh well, I vote we continue being rude in favor of EXPOSITION.




He is also apparently very rich, and his family is rumored to have mafia connections, sweet.



And all this time I thought a group work assignment was something totally different, thank you Lee.

In which Lee replies that the best case scenario is for us all to be in one group together, yay (who's Jun?). Lucia then starts guessing numbers about chance and Lee gets all serious about our chance number guessing.


To which we reply: OH GOD NO MATH ITS MORNING A;LKF;ASLFKJSLDFA


D'awwww

So then we head inside like good students.

Apparently Lee is not only smart, rich and possibly mafia affiliated, but the student council president. Lucia goes on a thought tangent about how Lee gets taken advantage of a lot because he's so nice (not in that way you perv D<) When suddenly...!

Sempai Route!


Which explains all the huffing (so get those nasty thoughts out of your head >:!)

Lucia and Raphael exchange pleasantries.


Go-go Gadget Optimism!



):

Raphael then leaves off to run off to his club before class and we remember OUR MISSION


Come on Lucia, have some confident, we got this.


....Man we really failed at fulfilling our no-delinquent aspiration, didn't we?

We explain to him that we are not here as a tax-collector, but instead have a letter for him, which we give to him.

Ah! Please don't hurt us Mr. Rico, it was this dude with weird hair okay D<


Apparently Rico has enslaved the entire male half of the class, because all of them start walking out with him.


Think of your GPA's guys!!


....

What is it? Everyone be rude to Lucia day? (why do I feel like that might just be everyday >_>)


Lucia is understandably upset over failing to fulfill her no-delinquent aspiration that she had at breakfast.

So let's go to class! I'm sure our day's gonna get better! Right? 8D

N-No...!
I-It's not too late I don't We did We can still fix this We can still be safe Safe Safe Please Mercy on our poor pǝʇɹǝʌuı SOULS
(Translation: This gon be good)

Class will keep us safe from delinquents! Woo!

Jun! Obviously we have the power to recognize your voice because you're not '???' Also, apparently we want to be in a group with you :D And you worry about us <3 You can protect us from the big bad delinquents, right?


Yay! A female friend!


Lucia says that she'll try, but we all know she's thinking in her head "IF ONLY YOU KNEW". Then the bell rings and it's time for class :D!

Mid-class, as the teacher is lecturing on something involving points of view, there is A MYSTERIOUS KNOCK AT THE DOOR.

Broken Forum, meet Blake, Blake, Broken Forum. I have since the very beginning always accidently called him 'Black' instead of Blake... ANYWAY, teacher is of course annoyed at the late arrival.


Teacher grumbles away about the importance of schooling and I'm sitting in Lucia's head going Idol Route! >_>

Oh yes and it's course time for some more character EXPOSITION.

...OH THAT'S WHY I CALL HIM BLACK ACCIDENTLY ALL THE TIME (cause I've played the demo before... and apparently that stuck...)


So Blac-Blake goes off to his seat which is behind us... of course.



Everyone, always, everyday so RUDE D<



-----------

SO MANY CHARACTERS SO LITTLE TIME. I think there's at least one more major person to introduce, or at least that I can remember from the demo... and then there will be PLOT.

So lunchtime comes and we get a text from Lee saying that there is no student council today. Afterwards lunch is over, because nothing ever exciting happens at lunch ):

Back to class we go~

Oh hey, it's the thing we were talking about with Lee this morning (before being introduced to four other characters).

The teacher goes through the names until he reaches Lucia and it is: Lucia, Lee and Blake. Lucia is obviously a little worried about Blake's group participation being nil.



ALK;LKAWE;ALSKDF

*cough*

Anyway classes are over, so to the shoe lockers we go!


This is why we should never start our day off with death screams, everything just gets worse and worse.



Oh look, a letter is included.


Dammit Black D< This is all your fault.

Lucia explains to us that this group of girls has always targeted her for bullying because she didn't want to join their hivemind. She is also suitably pissed off, cursing the girls and Blake in her head, ripping the letter apart and slamming her shoe locker shut.


The dog ate them! ...The... school dog?

By-the-by, we go ahead and start the journey home.


Lee! Come soothe our soul with your non-rudeness!



We are the master of deflecting emotional conversations.


Man, I'm so glad I'm out of school and essays are of the past.




Once again, after much character exposition we arrive at another decision point. So, will we let the injustice of unfair group work participation pass? Or shall we demand SATISFACTION AND NON-RUDENESS?

IT IS UP TO YOU, CHOOSE WELL.

MAKE HIM DO THE WORK.

(Also, I want an option for "Report the property vandalism to the school authorities and demand that they investigate, because, really, they're supposed to be watching out for the safety of kids in this school." Pff.)

Make him do the work! Please! Us two isn't safe we need to be safe please pleaseplease please please please please please

hehehe.

I wantz Blake. *grabby hands*

Pfft. Lucia is too prideful awesome to report such things, she can deal with bullies on her own probably not.

This seems like a really awesome game! Is it free or is there a demo I can try out? ((Poor college student here))

It's free, the link to the download is actually in the first post. I'm a fan of the main creator in general due to her ability to finish a long product with (in the Fantasia series) a TON of routes. In comparison to me who has been working on the same visual novel for uh years... and helping with another one.. also for years (that one is close to being finished though... and I didn't play too big a role in the main portion of the game so I'm also not sure if I'm allowed to count it) ANYWAY I DIGRESS

Download the game do itttt.

Doonnneeee

Two votes for making him do the work, three if we count Ryz009 wanting Blake, since I assume if we leave him on our own ALL CHANCES WOULD BE LOST, all dramatically like.

Work made me hungry so I'm going to go order and eat pizza before playing some more (mmmm pizza) so THERE IS STILL TIME TO TURN THE TIDES, or just sit and wait for me to play more 8D

Am embarrassingly out of touch with my own country's lingo, but I do believe that Indonesians call fancy, high-end apartments "mansion" or "mansion-apartments". I have no idea where this story is supposed to be set in, but the writer's Indonesian, so...

(I'm voting for Lee's route because GLASSES)

That could be it. I don't know anything about Indonesian, and had forgotten that's where the writer is from XD I wonder if it's the same in other east asian or south-east asian languages. Thank you for the info~

General Update: Screenshots taken and update will be tomorrow morning (for me which actually would mean sometime past noon central US time.... >_>)

PUTTING A NEGATIVE VOTE FOR LEE'S ROUTE-- B-But the alternative would be... N-No, but but... We're already... The only way back... Can't... Go back... But... We can't...!
不要不要不要不要不要不要不要不要不要！！可怕呀！太可怕呀！我不要李竹园可是拉斐尔也是。。。拉斐尔。。。
不要阿！！！小强在那里？？救命啊，小强。。。！
(... Ahem, I cannot actually read what I am typing, so if I used any of the wrong characters, my deepest apologies to any Chinese folks who happened to read this post~)

I like Blake and his sleepy behaviour, but damnit he got our shoes slashed up! There's no way I'm letting him coast on the others' hard work, he's should help out!

I UNDERSTOOD SOMETHING IN THAT CHINESE, being that NOT WANT is one of the like three Chinese phrases I remember from Chinese 101... because it seemed to be a very useful phrase.

ANYWAY THE RESULTS OF OUR DECISION:


If we have to suffer, Blake has to suffer dammit D<


Lee doesn't want to share our awesome-ness with anyone



It then turns out that Lee is not worried about sharing our awesome-ness (as I previously thought) but at the confrontation of trying to convince idol boy to help us out. Lucia however tells him that she's got this (I predict she will of course bring maximum suffering >D)


D'awwww~

And then we go home.

.
....And then I remembered that this was a horror game. (Guys there is a bloody handprint on the full narration screen, guys, guys, guys, I don't like itt DX)




Oh god it's ??? ;____;




Eelaskjfiaidfjkas;ldfknas;ldkfasdfas.d...... I am totally not okay with you ???.

There is a scream that sounds very similar to the noise I myself just emitted and we cut to this black screen.



"You want to be like her, but it turns out that there are a lot of things you must sacrifice in order to be like her."

"Well then, let's do it together. I will help you fulfill your wish. Just say the magic word."

"I wish that I could..."

(AHHH NO LUCIA DON'T DRINK THE KOOLAID)

What? What's so bad about Lee? Someone horribly dies? He killed you? Who is Xiao Qiang?
Well, this story is about horrible murders anyway. I still vote for Lee because glasses.

From what I assume from Donmai's random gurgling of a mad woman, EVERYTHING IS BAD THERE IS NO HOPE OR SALVATION FOR US.

Or something to that extent (^u^)

Let's just say pretty much everyone in this game goes apeshit at some point. Save like 3 people.

Well you see [spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers] so basically we all [spoilers spoilers] at the [spoilers] or we [spoilers spoilers] and don't even [spoilers] until after we [spoilers] which makes me [spoilers].

Wish nothing, I have bad koolaid feeling about strange voices on black screens saying ominous things D:

We then look at the clock and once again like a good otome protagonist:

I'm so proud of you <3

Apparently the rest of the family didn't care to wake us up for FAMILY BREAKFAST TIMES and are already gone, so we're like A:LKDFJDS:LF and head out the door ourselves.


It's definitely a potato.


....It's Mom?


It's our neighbor! (Third times the charm). I don't trust neighbors >:

But Lucia is not me and didn't experience the opening sequence, so she politely greets Mrs. Ivanov.


Apparently we totally passed that spot check *poses* Very fitting for screenshot 100



Lucia pretty much repeats what she said outloud.


This sounds important, can we date him? Kouhai route?


But... I ... WHAT DO YOU THINK I WAS TRYING TO DO? ;_;

...I can assure you, Raphael, we really would rather not. Lucia does not seem to be the athletic type.

We are also very shocked that one of our seniors would be late, because never happens ever WHY RAPHAEL WHY DO YOU RUIN OUR DREAMS?



What is this... exercising for fun thing you speak of, sir?

Raphael then tells us to stop reading and start exercising but I don wannaaaa


Well we are in a horror game, so chances are you may die before that becomes a worry, so I wouldn't concern yourself about things like cardiovascular health *pats Lucia*

Lucia and Raphael then despair upon whether or not they will make it before the school gate closes on them, things are looking rather dim from this angle.


....you think?


I cannot even begin to describe the face I made while reading this >_>


We are so out of shape. Raphael isn't even winded D:


Everything > Math (and Lucia may just have a crush on Raphael because apparently Lecture + Raphael >>>>>> Math)

ANYWAY, Lucia and Raphael are then whisked off to be lectured.

This is a really long lecture... it goes on and on with ellipses for like three screen, I think there may have been a school history lesson somewhere in there as well.





Oh what, what's that I SEE ANOTHER DECISION POINT. This time we must choose what would make Raphael happier (or if we want to kick him to the curb what will make him hate us more).

What shall it be guys??

We're getting closer and closer to the parts I have no idea about. It's kinda exciting~

S-Such a difficult decision! Rafael wants to sleep... He... He wants to sleep, so... But he... But... 哎呀。。。W... W... L-Let him be...!

Is it wrong that I read senior Raphael as Señor Raphael? Either way, wake him up!

...
Is it sad that this little sequence made me kind of understand/sympathize with ????
I mean, one of my RP partners does that exact thing except more innocently.

Man, Rico could've avoided this if he just went "OKAY NO NEVERMIND THAT ORDER" once it got dangerous. That way, it wouldn't feel the need to eat his soul! Silly boy.

And I'll vote for letting him nap. :3