@kb: I was specifically talking about the romance between iya/ean, not the storyline or plot.

AV2: ean/iya was obvious. There wasn't any rival. We knew they were going to get together.

AP: devin/talia/alicia < - no we didn't know
AV3: mel/stella/edward < - no we didn't know (and still don't know)
AV1: rhen/galahad/dameon/danny/lars < - no we didn't know

AV2 is the only love story where we know the protagonist Ean is going to get together with Iya since: they were close friends before, got back together toward the middle, had no other rivals to fight off, etc etc. There is no tension, spark, or anything else i said before.

It's boring.

As for the storyline: not seeing where the suspense is. Suspense to me means that there are plenty of twists/turns and there's an urgency to beat the enemy as soon as possible or something bad will happen. In AV2, there was only one twist at the very end and I didn't sense any urgency to finish the game as quick as possible.

AV1/AP both aren't suspenseful either, each only having 1 twist. Fun games, but not for the suspense.

AV3 had the most twists even if one was pretty obvious since the beginning. But again, there was no sense of urgency to finish.

Conclusion: If I want suspense, I'll watch a movie, read a book, or play a shooting game lol. AV games aren't suspenseful with that urgency that if you don't succeed, the baddy wins. It's only with AV3 that the twists are multipling.

To me, the "twist" at the end of AV2 just seemed to come out of nowhere. It just struck me as lame rather than surprising. If the villain had turned out to be someone we care about instead of an evil witch, then maybe it would have been a good twist.

And as for Ean/Iya, I don't feel anything for their romance. It was just nice guy marries nice girl, and like KTC said, there's never any doubt that they're going to end up together.

Plus, from a personal standpoint, their romance was more central to the story than any other AV romance, and I have a tendency to dislike romance when it's the center of a story. I tend to prefer "subplot" romance - that always strikes me as more real. I have a theory that when romance is the center of any story, the storytellers tend to hammer it in that the protagonists love each other, while when the romance is a subplot, the storytellers know they won't have as much time for it, so they foucs mainly on telling it through meshing personalities instead.

Yeah, I'm weird.

@esme:

"It was just nice guy marries nice girl,"
^ omg, a nice concise way to explain to summarize all my ramblings on ean/Iya XD

that's an interesting perspective on romance stories. Now I think about it, I tend to see that with badly written stories (where this happens) while better written ones have the romance there for sure, but there's also a lot of interesting stuff going on besides the main romance. I mean, I'm all for fluff since my fandoms tend to thrive on very agonizing angst (where I don't know if they stay together), but fluff alone can't sustain a long/engaging story.

True. Stories filled with pointless fluff and overabundance of sap = BORING. Pretty much what Twilight is doing wrong, IMO..

@esme:care about....CARE about....If you remember the main goal actually(beside romance)was to get blessing of 6 nymphs so they do cared about snow queen though not for her but to get back so they can't go on killing snow queen.

You said "A nice guy marries a nice girl"

Thats what i also said.See in my last post and the matter which i was telling to pink.At least read full post.

@ktc:It was and it isn't always possible that they will change their pairs.I know there weren't any rivals but thats why i am saying the story wasn't mainly focused on romance.It was a fully calm story that made it less popular.I agree it was weak but it wasn't the worst of all av games.

Don't go on only romance the storyline is also there.

@kb: I'm confused on what you're trying to argue against in my post. Please be more specific to what exactly you are arguing against.

My posts concerning AV2 have picked at its storyline, characters, and romance. AV2 suffers from issues with all three while AV1,AP, AV3 don't. They have their problems to be sure, but not all three at once.

To reiterate:

The storyline is unsuspenseful and not gripping. Getting the blessings has the same vibe of killing the daevas and rescuing the souls. been there, done that. I agree with Esme that the twist wasn't *GASP HOLY HELL! OMG!* material. It was more of a "K....so what's next?" feeling.

The characters are forgettable for the most part. I mentioned before that before the names started popping everywhere, I had forgotten 90% of the names and vaguely remember two of the side characters lol.

After finishing the first version of AV2, I thought "This was IT?" and after I finished the other version of AV2 I was even more "THIS was IT?!" because I hoped I could kick the rude prince's butt big time and it never happened... making him almost nice wasn't good enough for me *.*

I've never cared for nice boy + nice girl = pair. Not after AV1, not after LARS I'm surprised I can remember all of the characters names :o

After the Oracle said Snow Queen was a prisoner herself and not the real baddie, you could start thinking what kind of a character could be the REAL bad guy. Heptitus kind of was only option in that game (well the nosy little witch Mimpsy Mara(?) was other but not so obvious because she was a child).

Er..you only said "I was specifically talking about the romance between iya/ean, not the storyline or plot."

When were you concerning storyline.

And didn't i said That characters' comments were expected thats what made it less popular(that means the characters were forgettable)What i meant was romance wasn't given that much attention.

@leelah:Really...it was???? If you will see ap-Then there was a bad guy from starting and it remained till the end.Was that what you call suspense.Same as av1.And in av3 i don't know who was another bad guy but i heard it was gyendal and he remained till the end.

Storyline:
"As for the storyline: not seeing where the suspense is. Suspense to me means that there are plenty of twists/turns and there's an urgency to beat the enemy as soon as possible or something bad will happen. In AV2, there was only one twist at the very end and I didn't sense any urgency to finish the game as quick as possible.

AV1/AP both aren't suspenseful either, each only having 1 twist. Fun games, but not for the suspense.

AV3 had the most twists even if one was pretty obvious since the beginning. But again, there was no sense of urgency to finish.

Conclusion: If I want suspense, I'll watch a movie, read a book, or play a shooting game lol. AV games aren't suspenseful with that urgency that if you don't succeed, the baddy wins. It's only with AV3 that the twists are multipling."

pretty much what I reiterated lol!

and I think leelah's saying that heppy is the obvious culprit which killed any suspense/surprise because you know who's the real enemy.

AV1 and AP had no such twists: Zorom/Ahriman was the main bady. There twists laid elsewhere.

Yes, KTC, that's just the thing I tried to say. I waited for a biiiig surprise to be in the end in AV2, because I didn't want to believe the solution would be so simple. I was wrong.

lol thats somewhat what i wanted to say. Av2 wasn't that Bad.That means it wasn't the worst av game.

@kb: and that's where we disagree since compared to the rest, AV2 IS the worst game for me

AV2 in a nutshell:
Characters: forgettable
storyline: forgettable
romance: forgettable

...what happened in AV2 again? >.>

Quote:

Ummmmm Ean Jumped through a tree into the realworld to save Iya, saved the day, fought the witch went back home got married the end.

oh yeah! tree jumping XD
and real world...

o. M. G.! Ean and iya are from the virtual world of pointy ears?! O>O!

(my joking bone has recently been broken. excuse the bad jokes >.>.)

@Kb, I was referring to the very VERY end of AV2 in my last post, where it turns out that Heptitus was responsible for the whole thing. Oh, a wicked witch turned out to be the villain - that didn't strike me as a particularly clever plot twist. I don't really consider the "Snow-Queen-is-the-nymph-of-compassion" thing a plot twist because it's revealed in the middle of the game and it's told to the heroes by the Oracle - they don't discover it for themselves.

And also, I was not specifically addressing your post with my last one. I was just chiming in with my own two cents about the storyline and the romance in AV2.

Opinions differ.

@esme: In av1 also if oracle hadn't told then talia had not discovered that she will have to defeat ahriman.

In av1 if talia had not convinced the queen then rhen would never be able to defeat ahriman.
And if nox had not tell mel then she wouldn't have discovered it.

Quote:

Tell Mel about what? She already defeated Gyendal once, she knew she was a Darkthrop, and knew about the orbs long before Nox came into the picture in this last game.....all Nox seems to be doing this time around is goading Mel about things she's already aware of.

Mel thought that she had destroyed the orb didn't she???

Er..In this statement-

"In av1 also if oracle hadn't told then talia had not discovered that she will have to defeat ahriman."

Its ap not av1.

@crccdc:what about other avs???

Eh, no, she thought the Orb of Death was never finished, but she already suspected that the Oracle's information was wrong there (see Mel's note at the end of GON).

And how are any of those plot twists? In each of those cases, it's someone giving the protagonist information. If you recall, I was talking about plot twists in my last post. As you said earlier, please actually READ my posts before commenting on them.

i hav given up, because i cannot change any of your minds, but i would like to see what both sides have to say. I haven't even read all these posts. i will when i have time.

wow. this thread has turned into a full fledged war. go on, plaease! *sits idly in stands watching while eating popcorn*