Reverse: 1999

I originally planned to go through 2 chapters and then play Genshin, but I ended up playing until chapter 22. It was so engrossing! I don’t know how many chapters there are in total, but I think I did the final boss? I’m glad we don’t need to farm it, because the animations are so long on this one.

I love the story so so much, there are so many fronts and confrontations, and it’s really cool when everyone fights together.

I just finished chapter 11, the story is so so good. We’re finally seeing confrontations we’ve been waiting for a long time, and overall, it’s great to see so many characters at once. The pace is really good too, it’s very suspenseful and a lot of scenes make us take side, which I like.
I haven’t liked the last event stories we had this version, but the main story of 3.x is my favourite.

The story is so so good, I really love Merel a lot. She’s my favourite character just after Charon. I can’t wait to do her story, but it’s always best to do the main story first I think.

Continued a bit, there was a chapter with abstract concepts, I’m not sure I understood everything, but otherwise, most of the story is rather easy. I kind of stopped on a cliffhanger, but I also want to play Genshin today.

I started the main story, only did the first three episodes but 1- I love the beginning and 2- it’s quite easy to follow so far, which is really not always the case with R1999 stories (I mean, follow with Chinese text).

I don’t like all Reverse stories, but this one will most certainly be one of my favourites, because I love Merel. I can’t wait to know what happened and understand who Rhiannon is exactly.

I listened to the main story today (only did a couple of chapters), just listening, not looking at the text. It was okayish, I can’t say I’m following like super well, but enough to find it interesting and know what is happening.

I continued the story a bit, I finished chapter 9. I like it so far, but it’s also not my favourite.

I went through Lorentz Butterfly story. I found some parts interesting, some less, so I skimmed through them. I initially thought I would skip the whole character story, so I’m glad I went through it. But yeah, I don’t feel invested in this patch at all.

I finally started the story, I love it!! I’m watching on bilibili instead of playing in-game, I wish I could just listen to it and not have to always look at the screen, but it’s too difficult. I can follow quite well, but I need to read the subtitles in Chinese.
I love Loggerhead the most, I love her voice so much, so melodious! Then I also really like 野木蓝.

I finished Cheng Heguang’s story, it really was a last minute thing, but I haven’t played Reverse much lately.
I loved his story very much, I usually love Reverse character stories and anecdotes, but I find that they’ve become more contemplative lately? I like introspection, but rather than having the character recall the past in a contemplative way, I prefer just having an episode of the past as story. That’s exactly what Cheng Heguang’s story was, and I love it. It has a good plot, we learn about key moments of his past, learn about his character and personality… A story that has an engaging plot and allows us to know and understand the character better… that’s the best in my opinion.

I finished the main story! It was difficult to follow in Chinese, especially all the taoist/spiritual things, I can’t say I understood everything. Overall, I’d say I understood maybe 75% of what was said? Whereas a typical Genshin story would be closer to 95%? I liked the story overall, but it’s not my favourite, I much preferred last year’s Chinese New Year’s story with Liangyue.

I understood almost everything that Reed said, and Huigu was also rather easy. Cheng Heguang and Li shoubei were okayish, though there was a lot of vocabulary related to official duties, rank, etc. And Cheng Heguang uses a lot of chengyu. Lusi Jian and Ren Xianren were by far the most difficult to understand. Lusi Jian uses a lot of classical expressions, her Chinese was the most challenging. And Ren Xianren was mostly talking about taoist stuff that I would have found difficult to entirely grasp in English too anyway.

I’m looking forward to Cheng Heguang’s banner! I’ll pull a copy for Liangyue, and then save to P5 Charon.

I cleared two stages of Focused Flashback with full stars! My Corvus dynamo team cleared the Lingering Glow stage in 4 rounds - that’s thanks to P5 Charon and P5 Rhiannon - but was really surprised me is that Liang Yue cleared in 6 rounds!

Did people complain and the made the stages easier? Because my FUA team hasn’t changed, and they were not clearing this fast before…

I wonder if they made the Arcade mini game easier this time? Last time I didn’t clear difficulty 3, and I remember needing a lot of runs to complete it. This time, I cleared each difficulty once and maxed the rewards pretty easily.

For the first time since I started playing R1999, I won’t be able to complete the achievement card.

I can’t get 6 stars on the Focused Flashback event… My dynamo team got 3 stars, plant impromptu only managed to get 2, and there’s nothing on my account that can even clear the third stage…

I’m not pulling meta and I’m skipping entire archetypes to guarantee the characters I like or even get them to P5, so I don’t care about the rewards of this kind of events and I’m completely fine with not clearing all the endgame content. But locking the achievements behind meta pulls is a bit strange… 6 stars is also a big requirement. Like I dont’ think there’s anything you can do, it’s not like the needed characters were on banner…

I did everything I wanted to do in the patch! The achievement card is complete, I can peacefully wait for Enigma to release.

I didn’t like this version of UTTU, why did they make restrictions on the characters we can use? I really don’t see the point of the event, if we just use trial characters. It felt bad not being able to use my P5 Ezio, or my favourite character Charon.
And the restrictions were always the same, there was not a single stage that allowed us to play dynamo? Unless I missed something?

Limbo is done too, and I played Critter Crash until I got the skin. I’m missing some rewards, so I might do a couple of other runs if I have time.

Finished Centurion’s Anecdote, I liked it! The end was a bit underwhelming though…

I don’t have the courage to try and unlock the other ending, I’m not a fan of the multiple endings mechanic, so I’m giving up on the weapon ascension mats, but I do have the weapon!

I played a little bit of Critter Crash, I had a broken Dynamo deck which got me my best result.
I’ll continue playing until I get the skin, but I probably won’t have time to go beyond that.

Cleared Lucidscape! I always try to speedrun with my best characters. Teams were:
First half:

They cleared in 4 rounds. I did a retry, but I couldn’t clear in 3 rounds no matter what. Maybe the team is not optimal, because Fatutu didn’t do anything.

Second half:

Not sure what this team is exactly, but they cleared in 3 rounds no problem (Ezio is P5 and Charon P3). I didn’t play Cassandra at all.

I saw this word in three voicelines so far: Aino comparing her brain to a rusted screw when not fulled with cakes and sweets, Ineffa talking about her own joints under the rain… and Rubuska talking about a pair of rusted scissors she used to cut the burnt hair of her mother.
Some words associated with some of Rubuska’s voicelines make me really sad I cried a lot during her Story, it was one of the saddest I think

Genshin and Reverse use different words for “damage”.
伤害 is Genshin and 创伤 is R1999.

I just learned 无虞 which was at the end of Gorou’s letter, and if I’ve already encountered the hanzi of a word in another word, my flashcards will tell me. So this allowed me to realise that 虞 is the same as in 虞美人, which is a word closely linked to Charon. It’s in the name of his Ultimate, itself coming from his voiceline: 士兵不会瞑目，纵使虞美人盛开, which is one of my favourite voicelines in all Reverse.
But anyway, of course, in 虞美人 the character is a surname, so it has nothing to do with the meaning of fear, dread and worry we have in 无虞, that’s why I probably would never have realised that it’s actually the same character in both words if my flashcards hadn’t shown it to me.

Another word I learnt in Corvus voicelines, and I’m surprised I didn’t know it already. It means that I never saw this word before which is unlikely, or I saw it and ignored it, which is also unlikely because it’s not the kind of word whose meaning I could have guessed.

I learnt those two related words recently. 茧子 was Aino talking about Varka’s hands, and 老茧 was Corvus talking about her own hands. Always makes it easier to memorise a new character when seeing it in two different places in a short time!

I learnt this world in the event story 不老春, I wonder if it’ll ever be useful. If I ever see this word again, I need to remember to come back to this post to update it and say that it was useful after all.

I don’t know if this patch’s story is easier to follow or if my Chinese has improved, but I find it very easy to read. I’ve always struggled with Reverse 1999 stories, they’re so abstract sometimes or super specialised in one field. It sometimes feels like reading an academic paper… So some stories have been a real struggle to play in Chinese. I especially find everything related to Laplace a pain to understand. Even in English I’m not sure I follow everything, and I’m not interested in the researchers’ discussions anyway, so the stories focused entirely on Laplace have been my least favourites.

But On Another’s Sorrow is Genshin level so far (in terms of language difficulty).

R1999 SP confirmed that I have no interest in the collab… And I’m not interested in the current story either, so I might just log in to do dailies in the next weeks, and just skip the content I’m not interested in.
I’m afraid I might end up playing Reverse less and less.
I find the a lot of stories really annoying (especially everything related to Laplace, which we had a lot of recently), and overall I find that on auto the stories have a lot of dead time like transitions between the dialogues, which I’ve always found a bit irritating. And the combat is often too long and a bit boring to be honest. Animations take forever so playing for 10 or 20 rounds feels very long. Casting cards just takes a few seconds, then I have to sit through countless animations that don’t require any input from me, so I’ve kind of lost interest in combat. I think it would be fine if I could let the combat play while I’m working on something that also does not require full attention all the time, but I have everything on the same device, so that’s not really possible.

Even though I never played Assassin’s Creed, I was very excited for the R1999 collab, and I ended up P5ing Ezio. He’s still one of my favourite character and I love his playstyle a lot. I also loved both stories.
However this time… Atomic Heart… yeah not really my jam. I’m sure they’ll do something great and the characters will look good and all, but I’m almost certain I’m going to skip. I’m not playing a lot of Reverse at the moment anyway, and I’m afraid the collab won’t be what brings me back into the game.

Critter Crash is actually the perfect thing to do while watching the World Cup.

I completely forgot about Reed! I mean I forgot we got her for free and she was sitting at zero friendship in the suitcase. All my other characters have max friendship now.
I added her to the Wilderness, and I’ll need to redo my farming stages! My teams are always Ezio + whoever needs friendship levels.

I’m not playing any Reverse1999 at the moment, just logging in to do my dailies. I haven’t done the story yet, and I’m somehow not really motivated to do it at all. What I think I will do is listen to it on either YouTube or BiliBili instead of playing in-game, so I can do something else why I listen.

I probably won’t be playing much Reverse this new patch… I might even skip the story and character stories, we’ll see… There are so many things to do in Genshin right now, I don’t have time for two games, and R1999 has always been a side game. I also really want to go back to Where Winds Meet, so given that I’m not hyped at all for the this patch (not specially looking forward to the story, it’s also not a main story I think, and I’m skipping both characters anyway), it’s a good time to take a break.

I finished working on Corvus’ voicelines. I’ll do Rubuska next. I’m working my way in reverse given that the audio of the recent characters is not available on the wiki yet. I don’t know exactly when they will be, maybe when the character becomes standard? I only do characters I have.
I guess I should also study Corvus’ kit… R1999 character kits are such a pain to read and fully understand.

I’m working on Corvus voicelines. I didn’t pull on her banner, but I got her P1 thanks to the 100 free pulls from the mid-year anniversary. I never really paid attention to her voicelines though, but I’m working on it now!

I looked at Cheng Heguang’s kit, on the one hand, it is much simpler than Liangyue’s, but on the other hand, it’s still very difficult to understand to me… Like, even in English, it’s not because I read a kit once that I know how to play the character, but it’s worse in Chinese. It’s not even a vocab problem, because I already knew most of the words in his kit, it’s just that I read everything and have no idea of what he does appart from buffing and dealing some damage? Maybe I’m just stupid ^^’

Someone borrowed one of my characters! It could be Getian P3, Charon P3, or Ezio P5. Maybe I should replace Getian with Liangyue P3, she has her euphoria, her skin and her Resonance is maxed too. With the release of Cheng Heguang, people might want to try her before deciding whether to pull on the true-limited rerun banner.

Cheng Heguang came home at soft pity! Now I need to read and study his kit in Chinese, build him (3/60/10 for now I think), and learn how to play him with Liangyue. Which reminds me that I still haven’t entirely studied Liangyue’s euphoria (her kit is such a pain to read TT). As for the voicelines, I’ll study them when the audio is available on the wiki, I don’t know exactly when they’re uploaded, but it might take two patches still.

I finished Getian’s anecdote, I loved it, though it left me melancholic. I understand now why he has his anecdote this patch, the story beautifully echoes the themes of the event story, but from a completely different perspective.

I’m not a fan of the new anecdote format though… it’s just reading, I Iiked the older one much more.

Part of me wants to do Getian’s Anecdote in Chinese, and part of me just doesn’t have the courage. Because Getian is one of my favourite characters, I want to understand what I read, and his lore might be a bit difficult in Chinese too. I’ll probably stick to English.
One thing that I’m really happy about, is that I checked his anecdote weapon, and I can read the passive in Chinese without much struggle now! I’ve been studying character kits, and it pays off. I used to always check characters kits in English (even for Genshin), because it felt impossible to read abilities in Chinese, but I’m working on this now, and it’s not as daunting as I thought.

His weapon: 若记忆者灵感为【兽】，布设【术阵】时，为术阵附加额外效果：已方全体仪式威力提升10%，术阵结束后或被顶替后移除额外效果.
Which I understand as “If the (bearer?)’s afflatus is Beast, when they deploy an array, add an additional effect to the array: ceremonial might (I think it’s ultimate might, but I’ll have to check) increased by 10% for all team members, this additional effect stops when the array ends or is replaced.”
The only thing is 记忆者, which I assume refers to the person holding the weapon. I didn’t know they were called “the one who remembers”, but given that weapons are 心相, it makes sense.