The Pretty Blerd Guardian!

Even though my days of trick or treating or staying out late at night committing mischief are long behind me, Halloween is still my favorite holiday! The changing trees, all of the holiday themed treats, decorations and of course – all the spooky events. With that said, I do apologize this post came a bit late! I wanted to make sure the event came to a natural end and with the Howling Pumpkin event that ran after Halloween, decided to hold off in creating this post.

Since Tears of Themis is still relatively fresh, this October would mark its first Halloween themed event and I was beyond ecstatic to see what kind of cards and event would surround it. When the game opens, a beautiful haunting melody greets us along with a beautiful yet mysterious illustration of a woman donned in a witch like costume.

My expectations immediately skyrocket because the event immediately jumps into the story with Luke and our lawyer listening to a voice modulated message emit from a strange device sent to them.

“Listen carefully, Ace Detective and partner, this is the final time.
If you cannot complete this job within the allotted time and find the missing hacker…
I will immediately attack Big Data Lab and paralyze Stellis’ Internet networks.”

Talk about setting the tone! Marius quickly joins the fray and questions Luke, revealing that Big Data Lab has been continuously attacked by someone anonymous. Right now there are engineers able to fend them off but given their lack of resources already – it’s only a matter of time before they are worn down and unable to defend themselves anymore.

Seeing as this matter quickly endangers everyone in Stellis City, it doesn’t take everyone at the NXX headquarters to realize they will all have to work together in order to solve this mystery. As the lawyer accompanies our daring heartthrobs; Luke, Artem, Marius and Vyn – they will soon uncover the truths behind their questions. Who is this hacker they’re being threatened to find and why is this client so desperate to get them back?

MECHANICS

Now with the story set, we get into the heart of this event! We’re given a puzzle box which features many images, including the mysterious woman in whimsical clothing, and tasked to open these “compartments” by completing tasks and obtaining clues. Each day will unlock the ability to perform more tasks but you can’t move ahead without completing your current “compartment” first.

A lot of these tasks weren’t really difficult and actually kinda fun as they riddle you with certain objectives that are only accomplished in certain areas of the game such as Legal Studies or Operations. For example, you can complete a task by Debating with Kiki or specifying a certain location such as “The Themis Law Firm reception” – which is technically accomplished by accessing a previous debate in the main storyline during the first chapter.

Now this might come across as sadistic but I wished they made this feature more difficult. Instead of clicking the event and being taken straight to the debate that’ll complete your task, make us put our noggin’s to work finding the solution ourselves or maybe dropping a hint what section we could find it at? It’d feel more like a scavenger hunt and bring some spice to the monotonous clicking and fast forwarding but overall I was pretty satisfied with it.

STORYLINE

…I’ll be honest, this was better off being an actual chapter versus an event. I didn’t dislike it but considering it’s ToT’s first Halloween event, it felt really underwhelming nor related to the holiday in any kind of way. Intrigue? Sure. Mystery? Absolutely. Yet it centers around two new characters who aren’t really given enough time for us to enjoy them at their fullest; we see glimpses of their life through a window but imagine staring into a cluttered room without seeing anything but shadows. That’s what it felt like. We spend most of this storyline chasing right behind the heels of this mysterious hacker only to find out that he, unfortunately, does perish at the hands of his assassins. But wait! We find out shortly after that the goal was to never save him but to finish his lifelong goal by bringing down the BigBad of this story.

Hmm…. I’m wondering why we just couldn’t lead with that from the beginning. I know the “witch” program wanted us to rescue him but when she’s presented as a logical mind who stated his chances of survival was 20% likely, it just feels strange we weren’t notified from the very beginning – wouldn’t that have wasted less time and heighten his chances of rescue? With that small twist and an abrupt ending where we say goodbye to the helpful program “witch” after she sacrifices herself in destroying the nefarious internet villainy, I’m left sort of .. meh. The ending really tried to push this action packed ending with a tragic note but it felt more awkward than anything because there wasn’t enough time to get to know these characters. They were interesting but not memorable so everything came off simple and fleeting.

With that being said, there were other parts of the storyline that I fully enjoyed. Watching all of our main characters work together to not only solve the case but dedicate themselves to keeping each other safe, cementing this further when Vyn warns our MC to not arrive in the bar by herself because they’re surrounded by “murderers”. That quickly caught my attention and did well to transfer from a humorous, scooby-doo themed chase into something more serious.

There’s also a minor character that I’d like to gush about for a second.

Now we already know this bar and said owner weren’t really upstanding but re-introducing the bar owner in this storyline gave us a closer glimpse at his character. Now I’ve always suffered the SideBae-Itus (an incurable condition where I end up becoming more fond of a background character vs the main ones) but I feel pretty justified in saying that he was fun to interact with. Not because of his strict rules protecting his patrons’ privacy despite his loose views on morality but for the reason that he actually assists our MC. I wouldn’t say “help” per se but it definitely lead the crew in the right direction, reasoning that everyone that visits his bar will be “satisfied” in one way or another. It felt mysterious and presented him in a more neutral light than someone who just dedicates his life to supporting the criminal and lawless.

GOOD POINTS:
Our main characters had great chemistry.
Nice reuse of characters (shout out to bar owner!)
Texting feature was new and easy for us to navigate.
Savenger hunt themed tasks were refreshing!

NOT-SO-GOOD POINTS:
The holiday cards had no relation to the actual event.
It wasn’t.. really about Halloween?
This felt better as an actual chapter instead as a quick event.
Confusing imagery? (I still have no idea why this woman was featured as a witch and still figuring out what imagery for the actual puzzle box actually meant in correlation to the story.)

FAVORITE EVENT MOMENT:
Vyn asks to accompany the MC at a location.
MC: What? That’s too much trouble for you, Dr Richter.
Marius: Regardless of trouble, I don’t think someone who sleeps till 9 o’clock can protect you.
Luke: Agreed.
Artem: Vyn, I hope you can consider the feasibility before you propose a plan.
Vyn: …….

Bonus: Howling Pumpkin

This little event took place in the middle of Symphony of the Night, boasting a cute collecting mini game with the promise of an even cuter badge if you collect 600 pumpkins. The rules were pretty simple; every four hours you have the chance to harvest these pumpkins, sometimes varying in types, with an occasional gift from your chosen partner that can be anything from Haste Water (which quickens the harvest time) or potions to reward you rare pumpkin designs.

Now I’ll be honest, I didn’t have the patience nor time to wake up or check in the app every four hours to get these pumpkins. Ya girl has a work schedule and didn’t want to give up sleep time either! Unless Mystic Messenger releases new content, I can confidently say setting up alarms every 3-4 hours are far behind me now and that’s probably why I didn’t get this badge. Was I close? Absolutely but I made the fatal mistake of getting swept up in the “surprise visit” gifts, wasting my time to collect small glimpses of spooky friends with small bubbles of text.

You: Oh, who lost their balloon? There’s a name written on it!

…that’s it? I spent 1500 coins for that?

This event, despite it looking pretty cute and having that addictive “farming sim” feel, gave me more frustration than delight. The time frame wasn’t really manageable for people who have busy schedules and the other features aside from potions that shortened the harvest time weren’t worth it. If we can’t have a longer time frame for this event or some like these in the future, perhaps lessen the amount needed or at least offer alternate ways to harvest? I had plenty of S-Chips to spare.

CONCLUSION

I had a lot of fun still despite these setbacks and hope that next years Halloween event will be even more thrilling! I’ve still the cards to review (which are gorgeous by the way) so hopefully they’ll give me the spooky fix that I need. In the meantime, everyone have a great spooky season and eat lots of candy!