I got really sucked into exploring the different possible combinations and approaches to Chorus, so thought it would be fun to create a place to share what folks are learning. As it says on the tin, this is wall to wall spoilers – so much so that I’m not using blurred text because what would even be the point – so I definitely wouldn’t read this post until you’ve done a fair bit of experimenting and are looking for a nudge (or have something cool to share). I will add some spoiler space to give folks with second thoughts a chance to withdraw.
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All right, nobody here but us type-451-corrupt entities. I’ve managed to get Ending 1 (the bad one) and Ending 3 (I think the best one), but not the second one, so would be very curious if anyone’s managed that. Here’s what I’ve figured out, organized by task:
Forest:
- I didn’t find anything interesting to the north or east, but there’s a monster to the west who can prevent less-capable characters from gathering sufficient herbs, and there’s an ambiguous encounter possible with a Lovecraftian entity to the south.
- Deja performs competently wherever you send her, I think regardless of whether there’s a special encounter available.
- Ceto likewise seems able to successfully gather herbs in every direction, and doesn’t trigger the special encounters. She also has a special interaction with Deja, though it doesn’t seem completely positive.
- If Camilla goes west, she gets scared off, but if she goes south, she meets someone new, which has a positive impact.
- Alecto, despite being a flyer, doesn’t seem to do well in the forest, which was surprising to me.
- That means Deja N, Ceto E, and Camilla S should get good-enough results in the forest.
Library:
- This is the one I had the hardest time with, because there are a greater number of combinations for options and because some of the prompting made me go down sub-optimal paths.
- Maharal is your dump option – she never finds anything interesting, I don’t think, so you can sort the coffee-table book and the first volume of the doorstoppers fantasy series to her.
- Katrina is a critical person to send to the library, since she’s a good reader and her life-sense will flag what’s wrong with two of the books (the mystery novel, and fantasy book 2). But – here’s where I went wrong – she doesn’t need to investigate those herself! So bringing her along but having her read the romance novel (which finds a ghost) and the treatise (which makes it more valuable) is the ideal way to go I think.
- Tekeli is also an MVP here – she can find the dragon in the mystery novel (though maybe only if Katrina’s there?) and detect the mimic in the second volume of the fantasy series.
- Camilla and Maharal have a fun special interaction, and she has an interesting response to reading the treatise, though I think Camilla is a bad choice for this task.
Checking on the trees:
- Two of the locations – the residential area and the shopping mall – are fine and don’t need to be checked on.
- Rashemon I think can only be productive going to the business district, where she finds a hiding supernatural entity.
- The historic district requires getting down into a sewer – surprisingly, the only one I found who could do that was Alecto (she also gets a blurb about how good she is in cities if you sort her to this mission).
- The dorms have a weird lock-box around the tree, which Carole can use her space-bending powers to get inside. Bringing Carole along also opens up an interaction where Rash warns her that the powers that be are out to get her (I didn’t fully understand this).
Failing any of the branches seems to get you the first ending; when I did what I think is the optimal allocation and succeeded at all three, I got the third ending, labeled “Hope”, which I guess is the best (I didn’t fully understand what was going on with “Howard” leading a sort of Dreamlands-powered surveillance network for dark powers).
Anybody else turn up any effective or fun combinations, or figure out how to get to ending two? I’m mildly obsessed with this game, and hoping there’s a future expansion or sequel – nice work Skarn!