Read below to find out, and beware of spoilers!
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I did it. I finished Libera's route. Luckily I managed to take loads of screenshots of it, so this post should look a lot more lively! I'm not really sure how good my memory is on the plot of this one though...
When I first started the game, I didn't even realise that Libera was a love interest. Before hearing his/her voice, I thought that they were a girl. But then I turned the sound on, and I was a bit confused. I didn't think that Japan was progressive enough to include a transgender character in their visual novels. But Libera is actually just a boy pretending to be a girl to get more items and friend, and for some reason, nobody picks up on his masculine voice at all... There will be more on that later though.
The common route branch for Libera's route is the same as Hiroya's. You then get to make choices to pick which one of the two you want Kazuha to date. It branches off during the monster battle where Hiroya tells the heroine to run away, but she refuses. Instead, they run away together into this dark cave.
They're really tired so they decide to sit down and have a rest, which gives us a nice CG where Kazuha falls asleep on Hiroya's shoulder. Actually, it might have been the other way around, I can't remember and I'm not going to pull my Vita out to check. But then sometime later, they run into Libera, who was just mooching around to have a peek at the Almighty Amadeus or whatever it's called. Kazuha left her account ID open so that everybody can track her, but that's not her fault, she didn't know any better really.
I have absolutely no idea why nobody doubts Libera's gender. Maybe they were just being too polite to question it? I suppose he does put on quite a high pitched female voice when others are around. Anyways, Hiroya and Kazuha tell Libera what's going on and that they're looking for Shiki. Libera tells Hiroya that Shiki may have gone to that palace where Astrum and the others hang out, I can't really remember what it's called. So Hiroya goes and leaves Kazuha with this person they literally just met. Kazuha really wants to go with her childhood friend but he doesn't let her because her level is so low that some of the monsters could literally kill her with one hit.
So she's stuck there with Libera, who seems to be acting quite friendly towards her. She's taken by him to Twilight Captial, where they check out some market or something. Then some random male players show up and fawn over Libera, giving her some gifts which she happily accepts. Towards the men, she acts all cutesy and nice, whereas she acts more normally around Kazuha. After the gift-givers leave, Libera apologises for their annoyingness.
Then Kazuha's dragged into a clothes shop, where Libera makes her try on many outfits whilst getting a little bit too close for comfort. Kazuha just accepts this and doesn't try to push her new friend away at all!
No bells ring in Kazuha's head at all, even though Libera's acting really pervy when they've literally just met. She's just like "Wow, Libera's super nice and friendly to me!" Also that CG up there with his bum being pushed out must be fan service or something.
Then these men come into the shop looking for the rumoured girl who's supposed to hold the power of the Amadeus or whatever, so Libera and Kazuha hide in a fitting room and get really close together.
After they get out, they go to Domina's inn where Kazuha gets a free room and I think she meets all of the Forte members here too. She gets a message from Hiroya but doesn't reply to it because she's scared he's going to get offended if she talks about how she's staying in a warm bed with nice food, because it makes it seem like she's more privileged and lucky than him. Wouldn't it make him happy to hear that you're doing alright?? I really don't understand Kazuha sometimes.
Then Libera pops up and we get this CG.
Let me just inform you all that Libera's actually fourteen. I had no idea until after completing this route. Kazuha's probably meant to be sixteen or seventeen, which isn't that much of a gap, but the age still makes me feel a bit uneasy. Sweet Fuse had the decency to make their fifteen year old LI seventeen in the English localisation, but Period Cube didn't bother to do that, I suppose. Am I just overreacting, or is fourteen just way too young??
Let's just ignore all that and get back to the plot, shall we? After meeting all the Forte members, they suggest that Kazuha goes on a quest with them. Libera reacts to this quite angrily, he doesn't understand why she would want to go and risk her life. He decides not to go, but Kazuha convinces him to, saying stuff like "I really want us to fight together, Libera!". I'd just leave alone if I were her, and not force him to do something he doesn't want to, especially since he's literally not wearing any armour and isn't confident in their combat skills.
So they go on this quest, and I think Kazuha sees Natsu and that causes her and Libera to be separated from the group?? Sorry, my mind's foggy on this one. But they both run into a difficult boss and Libera protects Kazuha from getting hit by it. Of course, there's a bit of blood because he's not exactly wearing the kind of clothing that you should wear whilst fighting monsters.
So Kazuha gets triggered enough to activate her magical powers and the monster gets absolutely destroyed. Then Natsu pops up and because the magical thing powers are activated, Libera can see him for some reason!
Yep, you saw it right, Natsu and Libera are brothers. (If the image didn't load for you, it's just a CG with Natsu and Libera, and Libera's whispering "brother")
Since Natsu died IRL, it's his brother's first time seeing him in a while. Libera's a bit annoyed and Natsu remarks on how he's spending all his time in this game and how he's going to get him back to the real world. (Libera really doesn't care for the real world anymore, so I think that's why he doesn't do any of the quests, because he doesn't want to go back.)
Kazuha's like "Did he just say brother??" because she still hasn't realised that Libera's a boy. Then the quest ends and they're whooshed back to the real world. I was excited for this bit because I wanted to see what Libera looked like IRL.
After waking up in her brother's room, Kazuha rushes to the hospital to check on Hiroya. He's still asleep, because he's on his journey to the magical crystal angel palace with the name I can never remember. It is in this hospital where she runs into a very bratty little boy with his mummy. His name is Riku, and you guessed it, it's Libera!
After chatting to his mum for a bit, our heroine gets the chance to chat to Riku. He acts really tsundere and is quite uninterested with her. I forget what happens here, except that he's a bit angry.
I can't really remember when they explain this backstory, but I'm just going to explain it now. Basically, as a child, Riku was a bit frail so he spent a lot of his life in hospitals. His brother, Natsu spent a lot of time with him playing games. One day Natsu decided to make a game just for his younger sibling, with a bit of help from Shiki. This game was Arcadia. He invited Riku to play as soon as the beta test started, and I think the official release date was Riku's birthday. Then Natsu died and eventually Riku was whooshed into World V. In Arcadia, Riku became a female so that he could have an easy life with free items and plenty of friends, because girls in games like this always seem to get lots of attention, especially if they're pretty.
After her run in with Riku, Kazuha goes back to her brother's flat, does some online research about Arcadia and then gets sent back to the game world, where she's regrouped with the others. Libera's still acting a bit shitty towards her.
I forget exactly what happens next, but I know that Forte are there when it's revealed that Libera is a big fat liar. He told Hiroya that Shiki might be in the angel place when he actually has no fucking idea where he is. Why did he do this? Well, he did it because he wanted Amadeus for himself so that he could trade her with someone else for something cooler. In the meantime, he was going to act all pally and girly with her just for the fun of it. Wow, what a nice person! I know he's depressed about his brother's death, but that doesn't excuse this behaviour.
You would expect any normal person to react to this with anger, right? Well, Kazuha's just like "Oh, alright,". YOUR CHILDHOOD FRIEND WAS JUST PUT ON A LONG, DANGEROUS JOURNEY THAT COULD COST HIM HIS LIFE FOR NO REASON, AND YOU'RE NOT EVEN SLIGHTLY PISSED OFF ABOUT IT??? Kazuha literally gets offended by nothing at all! Luckily the members of Forte have actual human reactions to this news, and they're super angry at Libera, causing the little shit to storm off. And Kazuha's more sad about that than the fact that Hiroya's probably having a hard time right now because he was lied to!
I have no idea why I'm annoyed about this, because I can tolerate much worse LIs than this. I think I'm just more annoyed about Kazuha's reaction than anything else. I just cannot understand why she's not angry at him at all. She just forgives him even though it's something that's exactly not the easiest thing to let go of. Normally I'm alright with blank, emotionless heroines, but this I could not tolerate.
Of course, they meet again later on when the dreaded Jaws of Death attack Twilight Capital. Kazuha jumps out of a second-floor window to escape them, so Libera jumps in at the last second and manages to catch her in the air using his wings. He acts slightly tsundere to her at first, but of course, they make up and apologise.
Everybody runs away and camps out in a forest while figuring out what to do next. I think Libera promises to Kazuha that he'll get them out of World V (he might've actually said that later on, sorry), then he'll confess his love or something. He acknowledges that he's been a twat and that he shouldn't have gone around parading as a girl and lying to her.
They go to that other town where both Angel and Demon players can hang out. Ira and the other Forte members suggest that they should try clearing the Ark. If you make a dialogue choice to be a bit scared of going instead of being willing to go, you get affection points. Everybody makes their way to the portal to the Ark, but then Natsu pops up. Of course, only Kazuha can see it. She drags Libera through the portal quickly, and he's like "WTF?" but she explains that she can see his brother. They agree to go and hunt for him (even though they could probably die from all the monsters in here) without calling any of the others to inform them of what's going on first.
In one of the corridors, they run into Radius fighting some difficult boss. Then I think Kazuha uses her powers and they can see Natsu, who tells them that they must stop the Period Cube. I dunno if they find out that Shiki's behind it yet, I can't remember.
Libera comes up with a plan: go to the Period Cube and confront Shiki, whilst getting loads and loads of players to the entrance of the Ark to lag the game and to crash everything, including the Cube, getting them all logged out and whooshed back to the real world. I don't really know how many players it takes to do this, but it must be a lot of people, because otherwise the servers would be pretty shit if they couldn't handle busy periods like that.
Stuff happens and they band up with Astrum and his gang, Forte, all the demon people and Radius to do this. They go up to the Period Cube, and Shiki comes up, but not disguised as Zain this time. He's just himself. It's the first time I've properly seen his sprite inside Arcadia. He's actually not bad looking. He explains that he's doing this all for his imouto-chan, but Kazuha's not pleased at all. Then Shiki uses Zain (whose with the others by the Ark gates) to see that everybody's trying to lag the game, but he doesn't really do anything to stop it because I think that the server had already started slowing down then. But still, he could've like teleported people elsewhere or just killed them before anything could happen, couldn't he? Anyways, everybody's trying to fight this boss monster but the lag causes it to be really hard to move and it feels like everything's in slow motion.
Eventually enough people gather in one place to cause everybody to get logged out. Just like that, they're all sent back to the real world and never dragged back into World V again. Riku and Kazuha kiss twice, but there's no fucking CG because our lovely MC decides to close her eyes both times! (I think even Riku points out that she's missing out by doing that!)
Then they go to the hospital and Riku confesses his love for Kazuha in front of his mum and then has a "friendly family argument" with her. Oh yeah, in this route too, Shiki just wakes up with no memories again and avoids facing any repercussions for what he did.
The after credits scene is a five-year time skip, because the writers probably thought that Riku was way too young for any proper romancey stuff. He becomes a medical student and gets accepted to some fancy American university. Good for him, I suppose. Everything's alright now, and they live happily ever after.
As you could see from above, I had a lot of problems with this route. I still enjoyed it, but it's not perfect. I don't really like Kazuha that much at all, to be honest. I liked Riku/Libera as a character, I thought he was quite interesting but I'm just not sure about him as a love interest. Maybe if they'd made him a bit older, it would be alright, but whenever he was in the real world it felt like Kazuha was talking to a small child instead of someone she's going to date. I can't seem to find how old the MC's supposed to be on the official website, but if Hiroya's seventeen then she should be around the same age. Would you let a seventeen year old date your fourteen year old son???? Like maybe when they're adults it would be alright, but not as teenagers!! Maybe I'm just overreacting here... I still don't know how she fell in love with Riku after what he did, but I suppose you could say that about so many love interests who treat the MC badly.
So, in conclusion, this route was alright, the plot and Riku were interesting enough but Kazuha and the age of the LI kind of put me off a bit. It wasn't as good as the other two routes I played. Oh dear, I wonder what the bad ending's going to be like...
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Next time on Misty's Blog: I'm going to play another route, of course! I don't know whose I'm going to do next, but I feel like doing Demento's. Then I'm going to delve into the bad endings for his route and Riku's in a separate post. Stay tuned for my next Period Cube review, that should come most likely on Monday!
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