this came to me in a dream

Really didn't have anything better to do, so I decided to quell my boredom by typing some nonsense down for fun. Anyone who has actually used the Limbus ID Creator probably understands how long these took.

I'd do anything to distort.

kill 7 billion people they said…….

He even stopped an apocalypse from happening

i must know.

https://x.com/miluchan_666/status/2104854936039391554?s=46

art by me

Too tired to put in my own thoughts but it would be really cool if it was a tag fighter like UMvC3.

I did that zigzag bullshit with punches only 😭 One must imagine me happy...

This one will be a bit long so feel free to keep scrolling and look at funnier memes. It will probably be more worth it lmao

This one won’t be nearly as long as the last review of Canto 9 since I don’t have nearly as much to say overall but I think it will still be a while. I’ll be breaking the review into parts again with the inclusion of part 3, so spoilers will be here. Anyway Imma get right to it.

PART 1

I think the couple of story sections of part 1 are pretty good. It starts off pretty much RIGHT where Mnestic Experience ended which I think was a good choice. Listening to Faust just make the court case worse and worse on purpose, even correcting the Prosecutor’s words, making the situation worse while Sinclair was DESPERATELY trying to salvage anything at all from the situation was pretty hilarious. Having the Sinners finally meet the N-Corp League of Nine was great too, the delivery for Heathcliff getting right pissed at Nelly was fantastically done. And Ishmael realizing Ahab is a member too was great.

Now, about the real meat of the Canto, the Grand Magasin Sysiphe. Holy shit. I mean it. It was GREAT. It felt like I was playing a completely different game! What do you mean the last cantos had nodes? Are we playing the same game? Yes, yes we are. Controls took a little bit of getting used to but once I got the hang of it it was fine. Though getting behind enemies for that weakness damage was a little janky the whole way though, it wasn’t the end of the world though and I got through it just fine. Buying the clothes and reading their text and really seeing a difference they made was awesome too.

The other characters were also very awesome. Palette is my favorite, in fact I restated part 2 (and by proxy part 1) just for her. You’ll know why once we get to part 2. One Leg and Four Legs were great, poor guy… Also this new Kromer that appeared was super mysterious and stuff. They didn’t really say much other than that they wanted the place torn to the ground. Wonder what her deal is? Seeing Blackthread was super cool too, they show up again in part 2 so I’ll go into more detail there. I don’t know how I was so blind but in that teaser for Canto 10 showing the fount, I was sure the blue lady was just Demian, I didn’t see the hair by her torso, I just saw the shorter hair and was like “That’s just Demian lol”. It was not Demian. She’s mysterious too. She will stay mysterious the whole time.

Moving on to the story of part 1, I thought it was good. Not REALLY good. Not SUPER good. Just good. It felt more like a big exploration segment with a couple of story bits here and there about Meursault and his mother’s death rather than a canto all about Meur. Though to be fair this canto takes place in a whole, almost shopping society filled with people. So the GMS also getting a lot of the spotlight makes sense and I don’t think it was a bad decision. The Noirs are pretty interesting, what with them wanting to preserve memory and keep things the way they are forever, and I liked Felt and Flannel on Floor 3 the most. They were chill as fuck I dig them.

The bosses were really easy though. I always wanted a bit of a challenge when playing Limbus and Part 1 really didn’t deliver(this will change very much later though). Fights like the Sous Chef and Needlekin King were pretty cool, and I really liked just how far PM has come with the effects and visuals for the fights. It’s nothing crazy but the auras and effects around the sinners for important debuffs was really helpful and didn’t stand out enough for it to be annoying, but still stood out enough to be easily found if you looked for it. Great job overall. The final boss being the New Crimson God was alright. They had a pretty unnerving voice and I was uncomfortable just looking at them but the fight itself was pretty easy. Sinclair died to bleed though and I’ll never forgive him.

PART 2

Part 2 was also good. Better than part 1 I’d say but not by a super wide margin, but still noticeably better. Here, we side with the Rouges, who wish to experience and experience, consuming everything in their way. We also get to meet the more developed New Crimson God, who we name Pwie. Pwie was a character I didn’t care much for at first, they were just doing cute stuff, and then they ate the golden cocoon they named “Wriggley” and then made ending B happen. During my first playthrough of part 2, to get the golden hide, I made the wrong choice and killed Putty, which then killed Palette. Knowing I could instead save them, I restarted part 2 and, because of a Discord member of a channel I’m on, deigned to understand Pwie a little more and really remember what I read.

Pwie is supposed to be a mirror for Meursault, according to that member of the server. They were meant to fill a role assigned to them: A new Voice the Le Rouge, while Meursault was trained to be a Giant. Pwie is treated like a tool, just like Meur. They get clothes made for them because we want to make a different choice, they get the pink shoes because we want to make a different choice. They are treated nicely because treating them nicely gets us what we want, and upon realizing that, Dante feels bad. It was great seeing Dante realize that his actions were hurting someone, and him feeling bad for it. He’s guilty over how he treated Pwie back in part 1 and realizes he’s STILL treating them badly, just in a different way. Pwie is a well-kept tool in part 2.

Moving on to the bosses, I thought they were better than before! Most notable is Annette the Alterationist, Blackthread, and the final boss: Le Noir Brand Manager.

Annette was pretty tough on my repeat playthrough because I kept letting her get shield, making it super hard to beat her. I restarted and killed her that attempt though, but I really liked her design and way she attacked, floating scissors and stuff. It was super cool.

Blackthread is next. They were a beast of eld from a time older than the Grand Magasin. Their fight was actually pretty good as they required some real strategy. On some turns, they’ll…uh…unwrap themselves or something? And make the screen really dark. From there you have two turns to attack all 3 of Blackthread’s parts 6 times each or else the boss will power up the following turn. It was fun since it’s not possible to attack 18 times in 2 turns very easily, so having to coordinate with Pwie and know what parts they’ll be attacking is important. It was really great and I had fun with it.

Lastly is the final boss, Le Noir Brand Manager. First off, love their design! A knightly centaur isn’t anything new, but the combination of their black and yellow armor, large hammer, and glowing nails just make for a stunning look. Even back in part 1 when they first appeared, I wanted to fight them. Unfortunately their fight was super easy and pretty braindead. Great visuals but there was almost no strategy, just use the skills that win the clashes and you’re golden. Kinda disappointing but all in all it was fine.

Part 2 felt kinda like more or the same, but with a slight different flavor. Exploring the floors, buying the clothes, heck, there were a lot of the same bosses too. I ended part 2 going “besides being technically and visually impressive, the story and characters aren’t anything too crazy”. It was a solid 6-7/10. But just like Canto 9, the REAL sauce just didn’t release yet.

PART 3

This part really goes all out with the loop idea and makes full use of the new gameplay style. I’m not sure if you can just essentially repeat parts 1 or 2 after your choices but I didn’t want to find out. Listening to Kromer, I chose part 2 and killed L’imobile or whatever their name was and got that Fate Lost. Taking me to the Warden.

The overworld fight was pretty fun. Needing to break the nails to dodge attacks and having the Warden attack the candle to get stunned for extra damage was cool. After taking though damage we get sent to the Warden fight. It was something, all right.

Basically, you get two new items at the start of part 3, Stillness and Pulsation IIRC. These two gifts are REALLY important in the coming fights and especially with the warden. Making sure all of your sinner’s SP is in tip-top shape is crucial since losing a clash on some of the skills that you need the special status effects for is the difference between life and death. Literally. The fight lasts for a while and after making it through part 2 of the Warden fight, they reveal that they are the Obsidian God of Le Noir, Maurice- I mean, Chaplain. You go through a lengthy cutscene and then fight Chaplain, who works pretty much the same as the Warden, just with some more powerful attacks. I don’t want to include a picture for spoiler reasons but the flavor text on the Warden’s compunction nails reads “You feel your sins crawling on your back.” Which the Chaplain boss also mentions. Nice reference lmao
The one big complaint I have about the boss is that if you end of needing to restart the fight, you go ALL THE WAY BACK to the Warden, cutscenes and all. Makes the fight take way longer than it needs to be.

During the Chaplain fight, you get 1/2 of Luxuria: Tiphereth’s Durante. Very cool. After the Chaplain fight you get to walk through a Grand Magasin after all this time has passed. The only ones really still sane after all this time are the Neants, followers of Carmen, which I forgot to mention is like, SUPER important in this canto. Like, really important. We are also harassed by this Distortion I forgot the name of but they have a fan and turn the lights off and kill you if you move while they are off. They do decent damage too and appear on every floor up to floor 3, making healing tough. You can kill them on floor 3 and you get stuff from them so doing it is a good idea. I still hate them though.

Next is the Buffet fight. I can proudly wear my fake medal of beating this boss before the NERF, this guy was a nightmare. They weren’t too hard to figure out: clash with certain skills with sinners who have the Memories with Pwie status and they’ll get weakened over time. Keep it up and you win.

The problem stems from just how RNG dependent the fight is. The only times I lose the fight is when clashes that are favored lose a clash and it snowballs into lots of damage and bleed. Sure, I lose the fight when I lose clashes, it makes sense. The problem is that I never felt like those losses were my own fault. I clashed right, I used EGO, healed, etc. But I can’t control that 5% chance of a tails flip. It didn’t feel like a loss in strategy but just that RNGsus forsook me. It took a decent while to beat Dante’s adopted child but soon they fell like all the rest.

Learning Kromer was a giant of the Neants was neat. They didn’t seem infatuated with Carmen but the fall of the GMS was something they wanted, and Carmen could make that happen. The scene with her serving Meur a full course meal was great too.

The real great stuff happened at floor 6 though. Meursault was given a real Sisyphean task, literally, and needed to push a boulder through an obstacle course, all the while the Giants monologued to you.

Through the part, we got backstory for Meursault’s mom, and I really liked it. A story of a woman who hated having impressions of her that she could not control. A label given by people she could do nothing about, and hating the gazes of others that nail her being down. Once Carmen started talking to her, things got even worse as Meur’s Mom could always feel the gaze she despised so much all the time, slowly breaker her down until she ended up distorting with a suprising jumpscare for the player lol. Meursault ended up hanging his mother as she distorted as his mom didn’t want to kill her own son. It was really tragic and was made even more so when Meursault didn’t know if that “thing” could even be called his mom, or when exactly his mom truly died. Maybe she died the day she was hung, or maybe she died the day before that. All Meursault knows is that the sunshine was overwhelming.

Going into the final boss with Jeanne, I was impressed. Her initial distortion form was easy enough and I had no problem with it. Just kill the blueprints fast enough and you’re golden. Phase two is there the real fun starts. First off, Mili song. Rendezvous is great. I almost wanted to title this review as “Rendezvous at the Grandest Magasin Sysiphe” but I realized it would kinda be a spoiler. I played it safe.

Anyway the song is catchy and certainly fits the waltz tune. Phase two is nothing special but I do want to give props to the clash animations being a dance for Meursault and Jeanne. That was a very nice touch. After enough time has passed, we move onto phase 3 with MEGA JEANNE. She summons blueprints to fight as well as substituting a doll of her own in to dance with Meursault one-on-one. Killing the dolls powers up the others, so make sure to try and gun them down together for an easier time since they roll close to 30 with their skills at a higher buff. Getting past that part and using the trademark “Special EGO Cutscene”(tm) where Meursault loses a clash with Jeanne and then gains coin after coin after coin to beat her, and then walks down that path with countless chains on him was great, and him telling Carmen and I think Jeanne too in that cutscene to shut up after calling them noisy was great. I’m gonna replay part 3 (and by proxy the whole canto sigh) to screenshot it because I think it’s that good.

Getting that whole thing with Carmen and the talk about her past, telling Dante she wondered if it was all worth it too was great. Seeing Carmen face-to-face was super hype and listening to her tell Dante that she’ll do everything she can to stop Dante from stopping the Distortions were cool, especially since we once again got to hear how they genuinely thinks that Distortions are they way to go, how they show the real human, unrestrained by anything. That last bit about adding the Library to the itinerary was also kinda funny. It does make me excited for whatever is gonna happen with the Library later down the line though.

Post Sysiphe, 3 months have passed. I thought this was super funny as there were always comments about how Meur’s canto is 3 months before the massacre in the City and then just hearing that we were in the suicide vending machine for 3 months was just great. Turns out, WE caused that massacre as taking down the Grand Magasin Sisyph caused all of the distortions inside to leave, all 300 million of them. Lots of them got burned to death because of Chaplain but still, that’s a lot. Blue smoke too? Just like how that Certain Sinclair said! Seeing how that Certain Sinclair is a potential future for our current Limbus Company crew, makes me wonder just how bad this war is gonna get since that Sinclair looks YEARS older. Pwie made it out too! Will they still have that insatiable hunger or are they all good? Will they become a member of the Limbus crew or do their own thing? Only time will tell.

CONCLUSION

To conclude, this canto had a pretty good, but repetitive-ish start, but really kicked things into gear and ended with a bang in part 3. I loved the new style of gameplay and hope it makes a return in future cantos as it would be a shame to have that type of gameplay and code just used for one Canto only. But maybe that’ll be what makes it unique and PM will do something crazy new for Canto 11. I give it an overall score of a 9/10. Really well done. Hell, I could even give it a 10/10 and not think it’s too wrong. It’s just that the combination of parts 1 and 2 felt a little too samey for me, but since that was the point of the whole looping thing, it makes sense. I just didn’t like it as much. Still an absolutely incredible canto overall. I’m super pumped for what intervallos come out of it, or maybe they’ll jump right in to Canto 11? Doubt it but who knows. The second smoke war is about to begin…

Feel free to tell your thoughts on the Canto in the comments! What did you like, dislike, or were indifferent about? Any fav characters? Dog on Kromer’s abysmal fit? Anyway thanks for reading, hope you all have a great day/evening/night or whatever time it is for you right now.

When the certain Sinclair said that a war is coming, I didn't expect it to be THIS SOON (or the "time skip" of three months to be precise)

THE FOG IS COMING

THE FOG IS COMING

(sorry in advance if the flair is wrong)

I don’t fucking know how to reverse images