V14 impressions and direction (SPOILERS)

[Cyphre]

So, i have finished new content for both Renegade and Paragon, and i replayed entire ass NG+ once again because allegedly it was necessary. And... it kind of is, and i will talk about it separately. And i have THOUGHTS i need to put out in here to ease my mind. I have been watching Rejuvenation develop for a long ass time, over 10 years by now, replaying it every time new version comes out. I tried to be active on the forum, helped wherever i could, forced my friends to play it, and for the longest time i called Rejuvenation the best pokemon fangame ever made, for good reason, but thanks to V14 this likely changed. 

First, the good about it. Music is on the next level compared to before. Rejuvenation always had pretty good music, but the stuff in V14 was geniunely on a professional level in a lot of parts (although i heard those several JRPG remixes, i don't judge). Music was a geniune 10/10 and i hope whoever does it currently, i don't know if Zumi composes some of it or not to this day, i hope whoever does it will eventually be hired by other studios to do more of it. Good shit. 

Same with visuals, i feel like compared to early areas, pretty much everything possible was squeezed out of the engine and then some, and bar having more animated scenes like Melia kebab i doubt it's possible to improve it even more. Spectacle was nice, animations lively, sprites and actions are more animated, it only goes up. 


Sadly, this is where my praise stops and the story begins, and i could say that i was dissapointed, i could say it could be better, i could mince words and try to be polite. But ultimately, in my opinion of a person who watched and loved Rejuvenation for over 10 years, story-wise V14 was entirely absolutely criminally disgustingly incomprehensibly dogshit. So dogshit i think for me it killed the story entirely in one negligent swoop.

The first elephant in the room, Madame X reveal was done in literally THE single worst way that possibly could be done. It turned out there were essentially two Madame X, one that killed Nancy and was essentially a specialized combat servant and who we meet only twice, and Kaina Rhaela-Theolia, which is... complete nobody for us. 
So here is the thing, forget that you watched and theorized who Madame X is for years. Forget all the theories that made perfect sense. Imagine you only have your 150 something hour walkthrough. There is a very simple narrative rule, so basic i thought it's impossible to fuck it up. If there is a mystery, there MUST be a payoff to it. Chekhov's gun MUST fire. The mystery about who Madame X was always was present, in Eclysia Pyramid we had a very good tease (ENTIRELY different model to Kaina by the way), there was tension built up by her hidden identity and it was an inseparable element of her design, because, well, narratively it makes NO sense to hide a person behind a mask if that's a complete nobody. 
So ask yourself a question in regard on this situation: would anything change if it was Kaina running around with face open and not Madame X?

And i sat here and thought about it for a while. And i came to a conclusion that... no. The only thing armor did narratively is hide her from Karma, and it could be easily achieved with like a Timesplicer bangle or something if it was written so. It served no purpose whatesoever. The mystery buildup served no purpose and it denied the tension release by being... nothing. The thing is, this entire shebang could be more satisfying without a need to make up new characters, destroying character economy. Madame Robot, instead of wearing Marianette in her freaking forehead, could BE Marianette brainwashed by Vitus, garufan magic and Nihilego poison. It would be a boring answer, but it would make sense and it would justify hiding her face behind the armor from a narrative standpoint. Even moreso, considering she would be the one to kill Nancy, this would add feelings of guilt, conflict and vulnerability to her. Instead it was a random servant NPC like maids we clean up by dozens. 

Kaina is even worse, because there is a perfect candidate for her role and Kaina didn't even need to exist as a separate nobody. Of course, im talking about Nora Royer from WLL. It was dubbed a -1 version, and it could be easily be justified as THE first world she came from. Imaginary alternative scenario: Nora get slapped in the house as usual, Variya appears before her, makes her the first Interceptor. From there nothing need to be changed, Nora fights Karma forever and we arrive to the current Rejuvenation. But now instead of Madame X being literally damn nobody, it's Kenneth's daughter, it's a meaningful WLL connection, Aelita suddenly got stakes in it, Tesla as well, hiding her identity is justified. Kaina being a separate new character makes absolutely zero sense to me.

Anyway, Madame X reveal made no sense, it sucked to unimaginable degree, and main antagonist is... random NPC. Cool. Thanks. 

I'm not done though. Second and much worse elephant in a very cramped space by now is this whole meta angle of what is going on. Okay, so from my understanding of what is going on, correct me if i'm wrong, Melia found stuff in Zeight. She devised a plan to use End of Night in a separate Renegade timeline to erase people from Karma's (maybe Variya's as well) supervision, so EoN'd people become black boxes and she drags them into her backrooms to prepare for something outside of the space available to Kaina and Karma. Melia, MC and i think Crescent are on the plan, this is the Final Gambit they refer to multiple times. So why i think this is a problem? Because there are no stakes anymore. Nothing matters anymore. 

First thing that now simply sucks is that villain escalation and stakes went too far. We started from Xen and their admins and arrived to Madame X, who remained our Big Bad for a while. Then it escalated into Vitus being big bad, then it escalated into Space Hags and their agenda, then it escalated into Storm-9, then it escalated into Karma, then it escalated into Karma-Kaina warfare, THEN it still escalated into Zed and Lorna (who together make Karma but are NOT Karma, whatever that means), AND above this all there is Variya who ascended to some sort of godhood and pretty much just simulate all this. Considering not only a multiverse within this simulation with infinite amount of worlds, but also that there is a sort of a higher dimension where Zed, Lorna, Variya and her mysterious interlocutor reside, none of what we did matters by this point. Everything we went through, Kenneth's death, Goldenleaf arc, Terajuma, GDC, none of it matters if essentially it's all a simulation of higher beings doing whatever. It's dangerously close to "it was all a dream" narrative and it devalued everything characters went through. Stakes just arrived to a point where i don't care anymore, you can just escalate this nonsense infinitely without any rhyme or reason. 

And then we escalated to goddamn Eizen. Why this random nobody suddenly became essentially the most important kind of antagonist? Why there is so much importance put into a character that appeared only couple versions ago? By this point i despise Eizen because he just robbed everyone else of their agency by just hopping in and out like a cryptid. Eizen is by far the worst character in the entire Rejuvenation. Did we also need Nona Night and Ha Yuen? Why throw in MORE random overpowered nobodies at 11th hour? Cloe and Vera? Clover? I believe Rejuvenation has enough characters by this point. Character Economy. If they were not needed before, they are not needed now. 

And don't get me started on Zenos.


And gameplay wise it also get out of control. While i enjoy the senseless anime shounen spectacle, to me it went too far away from pokemon. By this point pokemon battles are kind of a formality cause after the fight loser will say "nah i win" and will go into super saiyan form to do all kinds of nonsense. Pokemon just kinda don't matter anymore in a pokemon game. 

Also i feel like effects and rift pokemon are again stepping out of line into an unfun territory. I always played on Intense when it was available, i generally sit on Masterball 1 in champions, i'm not like a god tier VGC player but i'm alright and i never really had many difficulties with fights. In v14 only several fights took me a while, first of all Renegade 6v12 Vitus was disgusting, and Paragon Percival fight was quite possibly top 3 worst in the game. I'm rambling, but point is, it's just unfun by this point. Effects spread out to auto Follow me, auto TR, auto Fissure, some bosses will raise their stats, lower your stats, get anti status, clear debuffs, have some extra effects, curse you and all at once and while it was fun in moderation, a lot of V14 fights to me just feel overloaded and instead of getting excited i just roll my eyes and bring my Haze Murkrow out of the box to clear out stats like every second turn. It's not HARD, but it stopped being fun with you being blocked from a lot of common strategies like using burn or paralysis without jumping through many hoopes. Last time i felt like that was when Intense Saki straight up used Megas with items, it's like me and enemies are playing 2 entirely different games now. 


Side note about NG+, which ended up mattering A LOT, mainly for the whole backroom thing + Cosmo becoming Eisen's assistant thing. I don't think Jan understand what it means to replay Rejuvenation by this point. With knowing exactly what to do and where to go, with skipping a lot of text, with using shared PC to speed up the process, it's still an enourmous undertaking and Rejuvenation's size becomes a burden for this type of game. It's not a 5 hour long Undertale i can replay twice a day to see something new. And skip function doesn't give you unique items and i think doesn't take into account potential relashionship value increases so skipping is most often a bad idea, although i commend making so much of the boring content like 999 shards skippable. It was very much fine to replay Rejuvenation in, say, version 7, but by this point going through this behemoth again is just too much. It's not a format that supports many replays. 


Overall i disliked V14 so much that for the first time in a decade i just don't care about upcoming 14.5 or 15. I could write more about many other points like forgotten plotlines like prophecies, but i've been at it for hours and i think i'm done here. It's a bloody shame the most impressive pokemon fangame of all time decided to go down this route. 




 

[GreyRavensong]

I’m honestly with you on a lot of this, of course I was bullied off the rejuv subreddit for saying anything of the sort. I HATE Kaina, I HATE Zenos, the new nobody criminals make no sense to be added outside of MAYBE future side quests and even then that’s just bloating the play time MORE, I abhor that ng+ is basically gonna be a every update gotta replay the whole game again thing, I hate how buggy it was (I recruited everyone during my paragon run and Amanda would NOT join me so I couldn’t get to level 5 group) the writing is generally really sloppy, plenty of characters feel off, like not even remotely like themselves. I dislike just how much of everything is kept from the player regarding our own plans and motives (never played deltarune and have no interest in it) I wanted to love v14 I’ve been playing rejuvenation on and off since the game only had 2 or 3 badges available. The battles are generally unfun, I’m not someone who enjoys difficulty or tedium and they have become both. The 6v12s are annoying doubly so with things like multiple health bar boss pokemon who get omniboosts and nerf you through the battle WHILE THEY STILL HAVE MULTIPLE OTHER POKEMON the contant removal of status effects you took the time to apply, The over importance of Melia/Maria in EVERY SINGLE ASPECT OF The plot, Crescent being revealed as vitus daughter only if you have her kill him, the complete disregard for player choice and agency because “just trust melia and her plan” and some Peronal gripes of mine are the doubling down on femininity in Alain’s sprite designs when it’s meant to be one of the enby options, the complete disrespect the player gets at every turn within the narrative. We lose every single time in v14 even when we win we lose. It’s edging overly close to misery porn at this point. It’s completely hopeless. Gods I HOPE that v15 addresses this because I haven’t seen any real positivity toward the story this time around and those that are even mildly positive still tend to dislike or not understand a lot of it. Which makes sense because without ng+ it’s mostly nonsense now, the fact it’s a requirement to dump another 100+ hours in every single time the game updates is lunacy. Legitimately insane you should be able to understand the story on a first pass, massive important details should t be hidden beneath ng+. Paragon mode v14 was awful, bad ending, shitty twists, even more character bloat. V14 renegade is guilty of crimes against writing with Zenos and its entire ending segment. Variya just kinda hanging out in where ever she is doing nothing even though it was hinted at that she should be dead. Sigh hopefully we can fallow her lead and also not stay dead. Fuck Zenos, fuck Kaina, fuck Lorna and zed. Just immensely sloppy and poorly done reveals. Wouldn’t have been so bad say if some of this was hinted at in idk v7 and revealed in v12 but nooooo wait till the 11tg hour for another “but wait ackshually this is the real main bad guy and they are super mega op and kill the player and kill everyone else and I win” it feels like children refusing to lose on a playground. It’s not meant to be a battle between the writers and the player. Nobody is supposed to win here we are all meant to enjoy ourselves together. Speaking of the writing it felt off on a way I cannot put into words. Disjointed for sure but off in other ways I can’t describe. Characters felt off, actions taken felt off, everything had this haze of just off to it. The whole thing felt like a fever dream a child may have. It felt like teenagers first edgy story. I had hoped for better but it’s edging closer to reborns writing again. (Which no disrespect to anyone involved in either game but I HATED reborn) it’s all just so messy. And I’m sorry for the massive wall of text, after deleting all my comments on the subreddit since people are jerks I needed somewhere to vent this and seeing someone openly have the same opinion was like ambrosia for a wound that’s been festering since v14s release.

[Zohnical]

@Jan I say this as a writer who understands how exciting it is to keep expanding a world and pursuing new ideas: I think Rejuvenation urgently needs stronger editorial restraint.

V14 gives me the impression that too many ideas are competing for priority at once. The issue is not a lack of creativity or ambition, it is that nobody seems to be making the difficult decisions about what belongs in the main story now, what should be saved for later, what can be combined with an existing concept, and what should simply be cut.

At times, the project feels like it needs a ruthless editor sitting nearby with a red pen saying:

“No. Use the established character instead of introducing another one.”

“No. Karma is already high enough on the hierarchy.”

“No. Winning the boss fight needs to affect what happens afterward.”

“No. The player should understand the central plot without replaying another 100-plus hours in NG+.”

I understand the excitement behind the scale of the story, but continual escalation has begun to undermine character economy, pacing, player agency and the emotional weight of earlier events.
 

Bigger is not automatically more meaningful, especially when each new reveal introduces another character, another cosmic layer or another explanation above the previous one.

There are still two major versions left, so this is not irreparable. But if V14 left this kind of impression on longtime players, the remaining story faces an uphill battle.

 

I think the best path forward would be to slow down, consolidate the cast and mythology, prioritize clear payoffs for established mysteries, and let the player’s victories genuinely matter.

The ambition is impressive. It simply needs more focus and someone willing to say, “This is a cool idea, but it does not belong here.”

[GreyRavensong]

33 minutes ago, Zohnical said:

@Jan I say this as a writer who understands how exciting it is to keep expanding a world and pursuing new ideas: I think Rejuvenation urgently needs stronger editorial restraint.

V14 gives me the impression that too many ideas are competing for priority at once. The issue is not a lack of creativity or ambition, it is that nobody seems to be making the difficult decisions about what belongs in the main story now, what should be saved for later, what can be combined with an existing concept, and what should simply be cut.

At times, the project feels like it needs a ruthless editor sitting nearby with a red pen saying:

“No. Use the established character instead of introducing another one.”

“No. Karma is already high enough on the hierarchy.”

“No. Winning the boss fight needs to affect what happens afterward.”

“No. The player should understand the central plot without replaying another 100-plus hours in NG+.”

I understand the excitement behind the scale of the story, but continual escalation has begun to undermine character economy, pacing, player agency and the emotional weight of earlier events.
 

Bigger is not automatically more meaningful, especially when each new reveal introduces another character, another cosmic layer or another explanation above the previous one.

There are still two major versions left, so this is not irreparable. But if V14 left this kind of impression on longtime players, the remaining story faces an uphill battle.

 

I think the best path forward would be to slow down, consolidate the cast and mythology, prioritize clear payoffs for established mysteries, and let the player’s victories genuinely matter.

The ambition is impressive. It simply needs more focus and someone willing to say, “This is a cool idea, but it does not belong here.”

I cannot upvote or like this enough, the openness while remaining both respectful and eloquent takes immeasurable willpower. Granted I started out being a lot more toned down in my responses but the subreddit is a den of sycophants who downvote and belittle anyone who has any criticism at all, respectful or otherwise. It got to the point that I deleted every post and comment I ever made on the rejuv subreddit. I genuinely hope Jan and the other devs see at the very least your comment and take some notes and consider changing course, because as things stand now I have extremely little faith in seeing this story resolved in a way that will satisfy me. The presentation is and has always been top notch but the convoluted mess of a story keeps it from being as good as it can be, deltarune seems to have been a bad influence in the devs, they seem to forget how long and at times tedious replaying this game is so taking all the weird choices from that game has only lowered the quality here. (I’ve never played deltarune but I’ve noticed a change in rejuv starting around the time undertale got popular) it’s infuriating to put so much time into this game to be inspired to make something BY this game and see it stagnate due to the over abundance of poor ideas and tropes that are executed awfully. I ADORE this game, I look up to the devs I WISH I could make a fan game myself (I lack the tech abilities and friends so I’m stuck with a mountain of planned ideas and storyboards and no way to do anything with them) this game hilariously kickstarted my enby journey with Alain’s original sprite (gods I miss that one the legacy sprite isn’t quite the same) so this game means ALOT to me. And seeing it like this eats at me like crazy, I can’t get it out of my head (I’m a very anxious person prone to thinking too much) that when it’s all said and done I may have preferred forgetting about it completely back in v2 or 3. I hope that doesn’t end up the case and the dev team pays attention to the criticism and not the sycophantic echo chamber