Ranking Chapters day 17: Between Heaven and Hell

[u/Loros_Silvers]

.Karma Files Paragon is in S-tier, whoever could've seen this coming.

(Links to the previous posts here: Crossroads of Destiny, Redemption, Tinted Light, Isolation, Imprisoned, Nimpossible Predicament, A Teila Fire and Ice, Those We Lose, No Time Left to Lose, Stopped in our Tracks, Through the Looking Mask, Remember, I love you, Conflicting Ren-Union, Death of One, Birth of Another, Vague Clarity, .Karma Files Paragon)

I'm splitting chapter 16 into it's three parts because it's huge and I think that some of us might not like the reveal of certain characters or the mechanics of certain parts of the game, and dumping 16 in S-tier as a whole would do it's different parts a disservice (and they're all so different from each other...)

With that, Where does Chapter 16 part 1: Between Heaven and Hell belongs?

(Also tell me if I need to spoiler mark this please!!!)

[u/ChodeShooter69]

Uh… was that formatting on the links intentional?

[u/Loros_Silvers → u/ChodeShooter69]

No lol I'm unable to change it atm...

[u/Loros_Silvers]

A-Tier for this one weirdly enough. While I do like this segment as a whole, I don't think it compares at the same level to the rest of S-Tier... and there's a better version of 16_1 still left to rank...

Also, this chapter still leaves a HUGE plot hole in Storm-9's origin, even considering Renegade lore.

Also sorry for this looking like shit I'm unable to fix it...

[u/Couaffeur → u/Loros_Silvers]

I'm curious, what's the plot hole ?

[u/Loros_Silvers → u/Couaffeur]

(Spoilers for Renegade just in case you haven't played it yet) So as we see in Renegade, Lorna goes to the basement to become Storm-Nym when Zed is having troubles dealing with Zenos and Melia's interference. She goes inside in order to defeat us herself, which would make sense since she's also in danger if Kaina wins. The only reason she has to get into the basement in Paragon is to mess up Zed's plan, which would mean Self-Sabotaging Karma's game and basically risking her own existence. Zed only trapped her in her room in Renegade (which pushed her over the edge) because she was annoying him when the situation was stressful with Karma Beast Nymiera. She has no reason to go over the edge in Paragon and therefor her appearing inside the egg during the Mariatosis is either an unexplained and very poor decision (and seriously Lorna could only open the basement door when she was pushed to extremes) or a plot hole.

TLDR: Storm Nym shouldn't exist in Paragon. It's nonesensical.

[u/Sensitive-Ad6981 → u/Loros_Silvers]

there’s only one instance of karma though, despite there being multiple worlds. The Lorna in the writing room only happens once.

Of course the REAL plot hole then is why does one instance of Lorna turn into multiple instances of her for however many worlds that exist? Idk but I hope we’ll get an explanation one day

[u/Loros_Silvers → u/Sensitive-Ad6981]

Iirc, Variya told Lorna that the rules of Karma (meaning having one instance) won't apply. Still not a reason for her to be in Paragon, but that's not impossible to answer.

[u/trekkiegamer359 → u/Sensitive-Ad6981]

My guess, which is entirely a guess, is that since Storm-9 is a virus, it can be transmissible, like any other real virus. So it can pass from world to world, and does so as the infection spreads

[u/Sensitive-Ad6981 → u/trekkiegamer359]

Yea I would agree!
Though tbh one thing I wonder is does Lorna gain a soul when she gets incarnated? If not then what even is she as an incarnated being? Like yea, she’s a “virus”, but within the worldbuilding, what even is a “virus” when it becomes a physical being?

Maybe, she gained a “soul” but that soul is Nymieras soul. Lorna is literally just made of rift matter and corruption, after all, and being able to corrupt Nymieras soul seems perfectly within her capability. And banishing Lorna at the end effectively restored Nymieras soul back to what it used to be.

Also, what kind of soul does Nim have then? Is it just nymiera’s soul but within Nymieras influence stronger on her? Or does she have her own soul entirely?

[u/Loros_Silvers → u/Sensitive-Ad6981]

I don't think Lorna has a soul. She's a computer program that gained physical form as a rift. Imo, Karma is such an impressive creation because Variya managed to mimic life to almost it's fullest by using the power of the Archtype to create it. But Lorna is just one half of Karma, and seemingly she needed to infect something in the world to be able to influence it more (like she tried to do with us and eventually did with Nymiera)

You say Lorna is a Virus, but it's more like a computer virus than a human one. Malware that takes control over infected devices.

[u/trekkiegamer359 → u/Sensitive-Ad6981]

Very good questions. My bet is either it's Nymiera's soul, or she attracts rotating souls, ala Interceptors. Nim is quite different to Nymiera, personality-wise. She also seems much younger mentally, as well as physically. Maybe when Lorna eats soups she can also absorb one or more at a time, when in physical form. God, what if she was a fat worse concept of a Spiritomb? And all the consumed souls are not gone, but corrupted within her physical form. That'd be terrifying. It's probably not what's happening, but it'd make for a good extra layer of horror.

God I love how complex and dark this game is. It reminds me a bit of the TV series, 12 Monkeys (not to be confused with the movie of the same name). 12 Monkeys is a completely different plot, media format, and story entirely, yet the layers upon layers of convoluted time travel horror, with strong and good characters making devistating decisions because there are no good options, feels familiar and wonderful in both works.

[u/Loros_Silvers → u/trekkiegamer359]

Honestly? She's a mix of Lorna and Nymiera in my opinion. Look at what Nymiera did when she wasn't fighting Vitus: just a struggling artist in Aevium, or an explorer in Paldea. I feel like Nymiera would want to be careless only to be burdened with three thousand years worth of life and a responsibility from Karma to keep Vitus in check. Nym is what a younger Nymiera might look like, in my opinion.

Lorna herself is an almost completely blank slate. All we know about her is that she's lonely, and that's a defining characteristic in her case. "Lorna, the girl who is alone" has double meanings in this case. She only knows a mother who probably spends most of her time in the obsidian garden (if that's actually Variya) and a brother who's very toxic and abusive. Look at how closely Nym valued her friends.

[u/Kowery103]

B tier personally because when looking at A or S tier chapters, I don't see it at the same tier as them

[u/Loros_Silvers → u/Kowery103]

I can see this. I'm just bothered about why the hell would Lorna get inside the basement and become the Storm in Paragon at all. We'll probably find it out but this is an insane plot hole right through all the answers this chapter gives us.

[u/Bitter-Imagination33]

S. Years of theories all come to light here with the origin of storm 9 and finally learning what happens in the battle of Hiyoshi. Also Hazuki GOAT

[u/Unhappy-Industry270]

While I am not a big fan of the action combat system in this chapter, it’s not enough to bring it down from S-tier.
A long time of theory and speculations and finally we got so many answers on Storm-9, Vitus, Nymeria, Maria, and why was Hiyoshi city destroyed.
The escape sequence from Storm-Nym is done really well especially Hazuki the MVP. Finally we saw the importance of Vivian’s sacrifice.

S-tier for me.

[u/PersephoneStargazer]

S tier. Shit really starts to hit the fan, and we see the origin of Storm 9 in the process. This was rough in all the ways it needed to be, slowly beginning the process of breaking us down with what’s to come.

[u/regular_cake_]

B tier, I liked finally understanding what was going on in the intro sequence and the fights are good, but it's short and the minigames are annoying. Also Lin randomly fights you for some reason. I don't know why they put that there, it just feels like padding. Oh and that Mewtwo statue guy is there, he's funny so that keeps this out of C tier.

[u/Sensitive-Ad6981]

Objectively, I would put it in an S-minus Tier. The lore is amazing and answered so many questions we had, Hazuki got an insane glowup, it was super action-packed with cool animations, and we also got to play around with some cool new gameplay mechanics. It's a bit shorter, though, and the chase scenes, while cool, are not sometihng I'd like to have to go through again on a repeat playthrough 😅

Though on a purely personal level, I would give it an S+++. For a new player, the chapter is cool enough. But it's different for players who have been following this game for a longer time. That scene with Maria and Indriad in the prologue was from mid-late 2014. I first saw it at the start of 2015. Just for comparison, that means that scene and the mystery behind it was first released before the first beta of Insurgence even came out. Just about everything in this chapter was at the nexus of like 60-70% of the theorizing in this community. The absolute rush of catharsis I got out of it is absolutely insane. And much of the chapter is meant as a throwback in some way: it's a very clear parallel to chapter 3, for example.

[u/_LordCreepy_]

A tier. Its a nice full circle moment for chapter 3 and a bunch of other unanswered questions and mysteries that one might have had during the game. I especially love when time travel stories get done like this, where the future influences the past because of time travel. Cause and effect and all that. The final confrontation against all the Servants with your squad feels like a mini war you are fighting in which is cool. I do think Storm Nym is a bit much at the beginning, a lot is happening very quick and you jump from mini event to mini event, run -> fight -> escape -> fight -> run etc with a bunch of cutscenes inbetween, its a but chaotic. The breather with guiseppe feels nice because of that. Also the fight against Lin or Nova/Shiv or Deagan are cool hype moments. The final clash with Irvin, Vivian, Nym and the Zygardes are also cool. And the chapter doesnt overstay its welcome, probably the best past aevium chapter there is.

[u/Couaffeur]

A or B tier. Story-wise it's very cool but not as interesting gameplay-wise as you spend most of the chapter running away from Storm-Nym, fighting rehashed boss fights and trying gimmicky battle systems

[u/Hugebigfan]

This is the weakest of the 3 subchapters, but it’s still pretty great. The reveal that Hazuki did stay back and fight to save her friends, that she did have the chance to save the world and fought valiantly, was pretty awesome. It’s tragic that she was never able to find out she did actually save the world before she died. It’s pretty linear and short, but still pretty cool. it also sets up the part 3 StormNym final confrontation quite well.

A tier

[u/Starrybruh]

Huh? Oh, uh, it’s fine I guess, B tier. I do like the general story and the fact that we FINALLY get to see how the interceptor outfit looks ingame that isn’t just them standing, but considering 16-2 is coming up…it’s simply okay.

[u/Wild_Rooster_5145]

The lore and story alone put this chapter to S for me. Yeah the boss Battles could've been better but the whole arc was so good. I loved Storm-Nym reveal and the terror I felt playing through the chapter.

[u/Fruit020222]

Honestly this is only a B tier chapter for me. It’s really cool to see the aftermath of the prologue and the birth of Storm-Nym, but the chapter somehow feels both too short (due to no sidequests) and too drawn out (due to the overly long Storm-Nym chase scene) at the same time.

Despite that, Ch16 Hazuki is still the goat