Alright, we've had a couple days to chew on the outcome of our very first playthrough of the game, and what a run it was! I narrowly clutched out a happy ending with Freya and then immediately cast it into the fire. Now that we've seen what happens when I'm left to my own devices, it's time for me to crack open the guides and discovers what's left to see in this game! I'll do my best to cover most everything here that's left to see, though there might be a couple things I leave by the wayside by the end. If you'd like to have some surprises left for the LP, I'll be spoilering most of the ending related details that I've discovered.
-To re-iterate something we discovered, if you miss out on two opportunities to date someone in a row, that romance route is forever terminated. As it happens, the romance scenes are staggered in just a way that you can pursue all the girls without ever shutting off their dates by Saturday, and hit the necessary 4 Hearts to get a happy conclusions.
-When it comes to focusing on one girl Maxing out their hearts has no effect on the story's outcome! You just need 4 hearts by Saturday and the final romance scene with your preferred girl in order to get the Good Company Testament. The only major thing you get out of dedicating at least one time slot every day to a specific girl is a Steam achievement.
-In addition to the Romance and Sacrifice endings each girl has, there are a handful of bad endings you can get if you place the wrong testaments. If you fail to place proper Testaments for the Tender Flesh and Sweetest Nectar, you're instantly awarded a bad ending that is the same regardless of who you brought to the forest. If you place the Tender Flesh and Sweetest Nectar properly but misplace or otherwise do not have the token for Good Company, you can get one of two bad endings depending on if you went to the forest with Rozenmarine or if you went with Freya/Lebkuchen. You can invite a girl to the woods even if you don't have 4 hearts with them, you simply won't get the final romance scene that awards the love token and thus are doomed to one of the bad endings.
-Note that it is actually possible to miss ALL the Testaments, not just the love token. If you don't talk to all the necessary villagers on Wednesday, Eugen won't give you the key to the windmill, and thus you cannot bake the Tender Flesh. Plus you could just... go home without doing it if you lose track of what you're doing. Similarly, you can actually skip out on crafting the Sweetest Nectar although you'd pretty much have to be self-sabotaging here to make that mistake.
-The Golden Girls DO NOT contribute to any kind of ending, but there is a bonus cutscene you can view if you find all 25 of them.
-If you're looking to qualify for every ending in the game, it's a good idea to hunt down the Golden Girls regardless. Many of them award treasures and healing items, and you'll have to sacrifice most of your working opportunities to attend dates, so those can be a lifesaver.
-Related to the last point, there is one errand for the villagers to do every day which is another avenue for getting healing items and treasures.
-We never followed up on that note we found in the church on the first day, and indeed you do have very limited time to pursue that line of investigation. There's a separate ending for completing the questline related to it, and it's pretty deviously hidden at all stages so it's not unlikely you'll fail this ending route without a guide.
-I had speculated this when we first saw it but the doppelganger girl you see during Wednesday's Witching Hour when rescuing Apfel is indeed determined by whoever you have the highest number of hearts with. In the event of any potential ties, Rozenmarine takes precedence over Freya and Lebkuchen, though I don't know who takes precedence between Freya and Leb. Naturally, the girl seen here will be the one who stands accused on the Friday church meeting.
-And to clarify on one thing since we never really ended up being at risk for this, if you advance time with maxed out Suspicion, that does trigger a non-standard gameover/pseudo-ending where you are tried for Witchcraft. Fortunately, there's usually 2-4 Suspicion altering conversations per time slot, so you pretty much always have a chance to save yourself. You're also not obligated to actually talk to any of the villagers most of the time, so there's plenty of room to evade raising suspicion altogether, though you will have to cover for Rozenmarine a lot on an All Endings run. I'll be mixing in bad endings with the intended goal of each video going forward so we'll be seeing what happens with this soon.
-There was a couple Freya dates we didn't get to see, plus I screwed up her second date originally, so I'll be sure to show those off when they're available. Otherwise, each new video will be focused on a specific route of the game at the expense of anyone else.
Speaking of! We've got one last chance for those among you to steer the course of this LP. Naturally we'll be checking out all that remains, but what would everyone like to see first? Shall was now pursue the pious but perpetually overworked Lebkuchen? Shall we see what happens when Rozenmarine gets her wish? Or, should we unravel the sinister plot that is going on underneath the noses of everyone in Kieferberg? Make your selection... now!
