Lucky Dog 1 +Badegg review

Lucky dog 1 and Badegg were initially released as totally unrelated games but as the days pass you can see the game company having second thoughts as they occasionally push both universes together maybe even treat them equally. Undeniably, to Tennenouji, Badegg is an equal, if not, way better game than Lucky dog 1. Put in mind that Badegg came out as an alternative universe in the stead of a sequel to the main story and took approximately +8 years for it to be released. So of course you’d expect its story and quality to be exceeding the original timeline in every aspect possible but in reality it was more like watching a potentially well-written, stand out story and writer that was faithful to the setting to a great extent succumb to the mediocrities of similar works with the same world-building: with the obvious inclination to action over proper depiction, neglect of logic and reason for the sake of drama, and the overdependence on violence and edginess displayed in Badegg. 

Characters: Let’s start out with Gian who’s basically the face of the game and was one of the main reasons for the original game’s success. 

Badegg Gian was presented to us as the complete opposite of Gian: he is someone grumpy, introverted and according to a lot of fans “He’s the much cooler version of the original Gian” but is that really true? Let’s see. Badegg Gian, at more than one point, was treated within the narrative as a strong loose cannon who has got distinctive leadership and intelligence all of which are the defining aspects of the original Gian’s personality but these traits don’t really make sense when Badegg’s protagonist is said to claim them as well—whereas throughout the story there’s no real definite proofs backing that up other than make-believe attempts which comes across as poorly thought-out pandering. Part of what made the original Gian’s personality so endearing was because he doesn’t leave you bored watching him. He was a naturally clean-cut and sharp individual and that was reflected in nearly every aspect of his character and his appearances yet he still had a great sense of humor and the ability to make fun of himself or others. He was capable of shaping his image in others’ head however he wanted and had natural manipulative skills and tact as well as eminent ability at reading others like an open book or analyzing them. That care-free vibe he presented himself with, along that underlying approachability was what made the original Gian such a great protagonist.

Meanwhile whenever Badegg Gian tries to act cool or do something clever he appears like an overbearing try-hard who’s trying really hard to be cool. The company obviously put a lot of effort into making him appeal to the fans of the original Gian alike, he’s supposed to be cool because of being disengaged and “apathetic” but instead he turns out to be a rather boring character who picked a bad day for a hangover and got throat problems.

If we wanted to summarize Badegg Gian’s whole character arc in one word it’d be edginess: he’s the flashy anti-hero who’s much more cooler than the bright normal hero (ie:Gian) which strikes me as a really weird widely-agreed on take because the original Gian had always been a morally grey character when situations call for it but I’ll elaborate on that later.

Badegg Gian operates mainly depending on sheer hand-twisting tactics and power rather than working his brain, he will not hesitate to kill or fight people (though those fights are mostly just done by Bakshi himself) unlike those goody two shoes normal people who just don’t have what it takes to get things done, unaware that larger systemic problems are better combated by organized teams and legal reform rather than punching people but as the cool protagonist he is, he doesn’t waste time with useless chatter with high authorities when he could just bullshit his way through. Surely, there’d be no consequences and no one would be able to do anything against him even though they exceed him in manpower and have absolute sovereignty, right? And even then he’s unstoppable just by himself for he is a human gifted with supernatural luck otherwise known as plot armor in other works. Badegg Gian, along his gang, will win his fights and manage through any obstacle through sheer grit and massive authorial bias. No need for him to cleverly resolve the dilemmas he faces with guile and underhanded tactics that emphasize his pragmatic nature like the original Gian. For example: when Margo challenges Badegg Gian to a Russian roulette the pistol postpones ever actually firing till Margo checks it to see if it was stuck only when the muzzle is facing his way does the pistol work. Now that was a cool moment. I admit you could buy it as something that happened by chance even if it was a stretch a lil. But then you look at the other two showcases of his luck in Badegg: in one bad-ending Gian’s luck makes the elevators suddenly descend, crushing to death the people inside and manipulates electricity, causing the lights filling the hall to explode for absolutely no reason, other time Gian gets caught up in a literal explosion but miraculously escapes it alive and gets healed by a method still undergoing trial and its chances of working are dimly low. Meanwhile in the original Gian’s case luck was never played as a gateway for lazy writing. Whenever Gian’s life was on the line he would plan out his strategies estimating his advantages and disadvantages after much pondering then lastly leave it up to his luck, sometimes he doesn’t even rely on it altogether and he is self aware enough that even horoscopes have more chance of working than his luck; Nothing extravagant and not within possible realms would usually occur due his exceptional luck like the other way around with Badegg Gian. For instance, when the original Gian found himself set up by his peers he racked his brains to find a way to turn the tables on them and corner them he didn’t just wait for their guns to backfire when they pointed them at him the same way Badegg Gian would have done if he was in his shoes. Badegg Gian hogs the spotlight while overcoming every obstacle with ease and brutality. No doubt his innate coolness will distract the audience from his complete lack of depth.

Badegg Gian’s only motive was revenge, his dialogues were filled with scorn and five-liners of pure threats about his bloody quest for vengeance, which he never managed to uphold much.

Badegg Gian was almost consumed by an overwhelming hatred of CR:5 who supposedly betrayed him. But how did CR:5 betray him? In the prison arc just when CR:5 are about to escape prison and Gian finds Giulio missing he quite literally tells CR:5 to escape without him, when CR:5 regroup with Giulio and actually try to take Gian’s word for it as they can’t wait any longer and their chance of escaping would be lost forever if they stayed any longer, Gian takes it really to heart even though the moment CR:5 escape prison they were confined by the traitors in the organization, and Ivan was sold to their enemies. However all of that doesn’t matter to Badegg Gian who turned to blaming CR:5 for the trauma Bakshi caused him (which varied from raping him for three CGs worth and biting skin off his shoulders) all while boyfriending said Bakshi and living best romantic life with him.

Badegg Gian never paused and asked himself if CR:5 really did betray him? Were the damage they did reversible? Between Bakshi and CR:5 who’s more deserving of scorn? Would his total lack of intelligence and immediate trust in whatever his enemies tell him instead of searching for the truth himself come across as anything but lazy writing? But no. Badegg’s protagonist jumps straight to making it his life goal to take vengeance on CR:5. Funnily enough whenever Gian crossed roads with anyone of CR:5 and they told him the reality that they didn’t betray him, he just breaks down over the fact that could mean he was wrong and his whole plan on destroying the family and Daivan was for naught and he just misunderstood, Badegg Gian was so desperate to not admit that he chose to believe hearsay over doing literally anything logical. I mean who really has time to actually make up a good reason for Badegg Gian’s bitter, edgy nature and fuel drama? Definitely not the writers.

An awful air of protag-bias gnawed over the story right from the very beginning and there was no effort in being even subtle about it. Since the moment Gian leaves prison suddenly every single higher up in CR:5, the BOI, the Chicago mafia, Grave Diggers and even completely unrelated families knew about the infamous Bad dog Giancarlo and were obsessed with getting rid of him like he’s the main ruiner of all of their ‘evil plans’ while CR:5 and Alessandro were a hair away from begging him to return back. You’d think Badegg Gian must be a hella important guy at this rate but in reality, he never bothered to do anything worth of mention besides escaping prison 4 times, he was beyond a low-ranked member in CR:5’s troops who just ran errands occasionally and that was it. At the same time the original Gian–who had been already a promoted 5th cadre–used the public’s ignorance of him in contrast to the capos as a trump card in critical times when the captains were prohibited from being seen in public, Badegg Gian became the talk of the town and all neighboring towns with a crystal clear record of zero achievements. The original Gian only became known as he became the boss, formed relationships with numerous big-wigs in the region, made himself the impetus of the Union’s success and saved the life of the boss of the most influential family in New York along countless leaders of other organizations’ twice in a row, wiped out two whole families in Chicago and was elected as the chairman of the East coast mafias union. On the other hand Badegg Gian was already world-widely famous before he lifted a finger.

The writers made it their sole mission to make Badegg Gian into the most typical Mary Sue of any story, everything comes and leads to him. Badegg Gian is not in the scene? Every other character there is talking about him. Surely corrupted politicians, underworld higher-ups and white supremacists wouldn’t waste time actually bringing their wrecked goals to fruition. But would Instead, worry about what Badegg Gian is doing or plotting against him that definitely makes sense. As for the antagonists in Badegg, they were a 1:1 retell of comic-book villains than anything. I’m not saying LD1 isn’t guilty of having ones like that too but at least it proved that it has the ability to write well-written villains just as much, villains who weren’t needlessly just pure evil and aimlessly chased after the protags just because the writer said so; they had their reasons, motives, morals and stuck to them. Both protagonists and antagonists pursued their own justice through their own methods. There was a thin line setting apart the two parties. The antagonists could have been the protagonists in someone else’s story just as CR:5, mainly the original Gian, would have been the antagonists in another’s.

Tennenouji were so desperate to glorify Badegg Gian that instead of having one character feed into his glorification they made up five new ones and named them DG with the Badegg protagonist himself as their leader. DG’s main role was to worship Gian and agree with him 24/8 without fail and their reward within the story is absolute inclination and favoritism.

Gian giving a touching speech only to never bring it up ever again

Since Badegg decided to take a rather weird turn and remind us that mafias are bad. Badegg Gian as the woke, rebel king he is, gives Daivan citizens an eye-opener speech on how liberal Daivan should be and not settle to be run by the evil-doers, the CR:5 mafia. Badegg Gian yells while standing on a box about his aspirations to destroy that mafia, return to Daivan its freedom and that he’s now recruiting. Despite the out of place heroic goal in a story that revolves around the underworld. Badegg Gian after creating his 30-member gang and getting money from his mother in the church he grew up in, has his gang spend almost 96% of the time killing off the Chicago mafia which invaded Daivan while CR:5 were weakened instead of pulling any real attempt to destroy CR:5 itself.

Back to the point hearing Gian’s ethereal speech, three CR:5 members ranked in the lowest of the low ranks, yet to even have the family’s tattoo, resolve to betray CR:5 and their reasoning is: The captains are missing. From there on the three join Badegg Gian forming together the four-members team traitors who ditched the family for the dumbest reasons possible yet get painted as if they did nothing wrong at all by everyone in the story and the fandom itself, some-how.

All of the DG’s personalities were a mere rip-off of the capos with an additional Badegg Gian worshipping character trait. The writer doesn’t even bother giving them much of a standalone personality. They just exist to give the illusion that Gian’s make-believe gang isn’t a failure, be equal to the capos and fuck up power-balances and later on play as the perfect romance fuel since certainly what other way to spice up your perfect story other than add harems with unrequited crushes who got absouletly no chance at winning the heart of Badegg Gian who’s unfortunately taken by his rapist. Thanks to their solid plot-armor, DG were able to beat all veterans in-spite of having only a fraction of experience. Bernardo admits Walther defeating him in his own field and the telecommunication system he himself created, Luchino is easily overwhelmed by Riccardo, gets his life saved by Riccardo’s good-heartedness and is thrown along his entire racket of numbers of skilled soldiers in the sea when they’re facing two previous CR:5 no-names and a Bakshi.. Etc only Giulio’s power was relatively done justice in this three-ring circus. The writers in Badegg’s motto was that everyone should crumble before the protagonists in the most anticlimactic way possible just like the story’s narrative stakes. No need to spend time carefully developing characters and plot when you could just take shortcuts that give the illusion of the characters being effortlessly extraordinarily skilled or natural born-leaders just like the case with Badegg Gian. 

Badegg Gian: piss

Everyone: YOOO I'LL FOLLOW THIS DUDE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE 

We were once shown a moment of Badegg Gian interacting with every single guy of his street gang and asking them about their family life in the most wholesome moments ever and suddenly that was peak leadership, straight up scoring 100/100 in the graph of well-written protagonists. Showing Badegg protag doing something sounds too much like actual work so the author just relies on having other side characters talk about how great he is. Why is he such a cool leader like never seen before? Well because the writer said so and so did all the other characters. Why go out of his way to show the events and choices that shape the characters’ exceptionalism when they could do the bare minimum and that’s it, making characters talk about how awesome Badegg Gian is over the course of the story and absolutely dragging CR:5 through the mud against DG and presenting the family as the most dysfunctional organization with the worst incompetent leaders will work just fine.

Power balances within the story were basically determined by whether the character is on the protagonist's side or not: every character that sided with Badegg Gian was made to be forever triumphant for Gian being by their side, never defeated, and even when they are they strike back hundred times stronger and every other character against the Badegg protag is helplessly pitiful and constantly lamenting over Gian not being with them.

Badegg Gian doesn’t realize he mayhaps misjudged a situation only till further at the end and what happens? The moment he admits being dumb everything he did just instantly vanishes there’s no slight working on development from his side no he dismisses his gang like some kind of school band and is now about to reconcile with his old friends CR:5 like nothing ever happened under the pretext of meeting with them as the leader of the extremely powerful no longer existent gang that CR:5 in all its glory tried to make peace with and also which Giulio killed 28 of its members while on a yandere spree…

One of the biggest downsides to Badegg is how the game ‘stereotypes’ Bakshi: a character initially so interesting gets reduced to your typical NPC who fades into the background as his boyfriend steals all the spotlight with his smart revenge plan. It’s sad to see the writers slack on doing a character as entertaining and incomprehensible as Bakshi justice as they settle on merely shoving his weird and ambiguous motives and personality aside in exchange for giving him the role of a mob wife-enabler who does the cooking, the cleaning, the patching up and killing for Badegg Gian who resembled an otome heroine too much for his own good (I mean the way more than 9 guys fall for him without him doing anything and the antagonists only talking about him for no logical reason except for the fact he's the protagonist and how 90% of the time he relied on being saved either by any DG member or Bakshi himself). Bakshi never undergoes a true metamorphosis or is properly handled in any way. He fell in love with Badegg Gian and his free trial of being interesting was over.

The capos were the biggest downfall of Badegg, the writing hit the mark and ran a marathon over their original personalities, the writer wrote them not as their selves at the beginning of Lucky dog 1 when they barely knew Gian nor each other but based on their development and over familiarity later on with the progress of the original story. The captains in Badegg all turned to be die-hard Gian friends right from the start, they don’t get time to get close to him at all during the prison arc (Indeed, the prison arc took longer than the main story but that does not mean shit when 90% of the arc was wasted on Gian trying to get by through the prison’s new insufferable rules and avoid Gonzelaz’s evil-prison ruling or whatever his name was) there’s no explanation/excuse for the capos’ butcher of personality except for the writers’ desire to use it to service the premise of Badegg which is angst and breakup drama.

Ivan being told that his personality will be yeeted for the sake of drama

The original Ivan’s whole character arc was about him learning to trust other people and open up to them, consider them comrades. Gian had to spend a lot of time trying to get through him. Ivan gave a shounen protag’s speech (to Giulio) over friendship and how he’s gonna settle scores with Badegg Gian as comrades after Badegg Gian straight up betrays him, causes his troops casualties and spoke with him only for like two lines. Ivan went through quite the lengths in Badegg for a random guy he spent two seconds with. He felt immensely guilt-tripped over what happened with Gian and never even held a grudge against him rather felt remorseful to him till the last moment. It was as if Ivan turned into a saint over a night or quite possibly had an identity theft. For someone whom he barely spent time with and at no point did their bond deepen, Ivan wouldn’t feel the slightest tingle of guilt. Under logical circumstances, Ivan wouldn’t have given much no more than two shits about Gian because he never meant to him much in the first place, merely spending more days in prison doesn’t magically make Ivan think of you as his long-term closest pal. He puts like a million walls before he considers someone a comrade and is loyal to them this much and doesn’t reveal his good side to people just that easily. Ivan wouldn’t go through all this self-reproach when it was out of his hand in the first place and Badegg Gian himself realized he was mistaken. During the prison arc in the original game Ivan was ready to ditch everyone, Gian included in a heartbeat, moreover in Ivan’s route when Gian does (betray) humiliate Ivan, he turns 180° on him. Heck Ivan literally burned alive his friend when he betrayed him and his friend was the closest person to him then, Ivan’s not merciful nor does he let betrayal slide nor would he let said traitor go off just like that, Ivan’s spartan when it comes to being betrayed. He wouldn’t welcome Randolf and Badegg Gian with open arms and treat them like fellow friends and rivals standing on equal footing as him. 

The same goes for Luchino, Luchino feels great responsibility towards the family and his subordinates and when Gian actually does lead to the harm of the subordinates under his command and is an overall threat to the family, he just lets him go off. The same guy who was ready to kill his own godfather/boss and readily ditched the dearest person to him, his wife, because he believed the two of them to have betrayed him, now when it’s Badegg Gian, he doesn’t do anything about it and holds absolutely no negative feelings towards him but rather apologizes for stuff he never did? In Luchino's route Luchino affirmed to Gian twice that as long as he abides by the omerta and is one of them he'd be on his side but when Badegg Gian betrays the family on his own accord Luchino's just like "please come back, baby, we all make mistakes". Luchino readily abandoned the omerta and all his beliefs which he initially stuck to adamantly and that was all for a random guy he spoke 3 lines with. 

The deeper you think CR:5’s personalities through in Badegg the closer you are to draw the conclusion that the author forgot his own characters.

Many of CR:5’s lines and actions were so hypocritical and so out of character. They were like wimps whereas they were originally harsh and strict mafia leaders. Such character assassination does nothing but worsen an already worsened story. You can’t present me and underline personalities yet throw it all in the trash because you seek to create a soap opera in your next work. you can’t give me a whole game emphasizing on the importance of the characters growing closer and how being distant makes a whole difference in their attitude (which is overall an important key to the plot since the emotional intimacy plays a huge part) only to throw it all away in your next creation, characters don’t work that way.

Bernardo and Giulio were just a sore sight to witness the Bernardo who was said to know well how to distance his own feelings from his work quiet fails miserably on doing that and Giulio… the game just decides to cater to the fan girls who have a fetish for yandere characters and goes an extra mile to turn Giulio a full-on yandere, ruining the character they were initially smart enough to not make fall under such a boring archetype with his creepy traits being more the focus not stalking and licking Gian's saliva like the case in Badegg.

Speaking of Bernardo and Giulio, Badegg explained the drastic difference in personality between the two Gians by reasoning that his mother, Gelsomina, actually slept with Ethan therefore he’s Ethan’s son not Alessandro’s. The trashy soap opera of infidelities aside, if Badegg Gian has a whole different genetics running in his veins and has got nothing to do with the original Gian then why would Bernardo and Giulio be this infatuated with him? The original Gian was a care-free, spirited guy who loved to get himself in others’ business with no care in the world, this is why he did the simple gesture of going up to Giulio and talking to him even when all other kids were scared from the guards surrounding him and, in Bernardo’s case, he just forced himself on Bernardo and saved his life nearly three times. I’m pretty sure a guy with a totally different personality wouldn’t do literally the same things. It’s almost as if the writer set the story with its core base still Lucky Dog1’s instead of trying to make it line up with Badegg. I mean at the end of the day, who cares?

I'll never forgive tennenouji for promoting Badegg as the game which reveals Gian's real origins and delves into it only for them to end up changing his whole mf origins and make him Ethan's son instead and delve into that hypothetical scenario 

Plot: My main problem with Badegg is the writer’s complete lack of self-awareness that this was supposed to be a story about the Italian mafia. The story seemed like it had only one purpose and that is to trample over the omerta and the organizational structure of the family. Badegg quite literally tries to convince you, the reader, that mafias are bad, while preaching about and painting street gangs, who are originally turbulent, haywire gangsters, in a much more legitimate and heroic light.

The writer focused the most spotlight on the protagonist as he wrestles with his soul because of his own stupidity and the incompetent leaders with a survivor guilt complex watching their organization crumble in ineptitude. (The whole deal with moralizing Gian of all people and selling the Italian mafias as cheap wrong-doers was so far off track.)

Badegg was a +60 hour long game of watching the writer, write and keep on writing as he struggles with ending his story at a proper end. The story kept bogging down and took an eternity for you to find that long-lost climax that pulls you in the events. There was a complete lack of care given to the story structure and countless scenes having a point. Almost like there was a genie that just kept on telling the writer to write and that was his inspiration surely quantity is better than quality, isn’t it?

Numerous scenes that ate up so much of the story’s time did absolutely nothing to add depth to the world-setting nor showcase character development nor advance plot elements in any way. The author never asked himself whether a scene was cut from the story, would the story be any better? No, as long as a scene is cool, stretching out plot with slapstick sense of humor and displaying every other guy having a 10-minute long dialog, it has a merit to be included within the story. No sense of progression till the audience is beginning to sleep, no central conflict to even drive the dialog. Just a bunch of characters standing around and talking about the plot rather than moving it along until the writer springs an action scene upon them out of nowhere with a smooth transition. If you tried to place a catch on what exactly is Badegg’s plot about you’d be lost or you can just summarize it in Badegg Gian trying to strike drama with his exes while fucking another guy. The author in Badegg kept building up side plots at the expense of other sub-ones then got bored and abandoned all of them, leaving them just dangling with no satisfying end. No one will notice and filing any remaining plot-holes with weak excuses is simple as hell.

Badegg felt like the author trying to appeal to as large of an audience as possible rather than keeping a contained story. The unnecessary rape, the simplicity of a story filled with empty action, the overwhelming drama and the recent DG having crushes on the protag.

Despite the story’s insane length it falls so weak on pacing. The ending is almost laughably bad as well, with an extra scene that wraps up everything and now Badegg Gian is going to return to Daivan as if nothing as if he was never a traitor that ought to be killed. Last time Alessandro met Badegg Gian he told him to leave Daivan otherwise his capos wouldn’t let him escape alive, but seeing Badegg Gian about to come back to Daivan in the upcoming last drama cd now just fine and knowing that the two (Gian and CR:5) are probably gonna have one of the lamest interactions I’m reminded of the original Gian’s line to the board “If the boss was here, he’d kill himself out of fuckin pity.”

In Demon’s ringlet, Gian thinks to himself when he was trying to return back to Daivan taking roundabout roads that he felt like someone was watching his every step, someone who knew exactly what his next moves were and was a step ahead of him let alone, familiar with his mind. As though that someone was another him and we all know this was implying that said someone was Badegg Gian but after seeing the real Badegg Gian wrestling with his utter brainlessness throughout Badegg I’m starting to have doubts that guy has anything but the brains of a potted seed. (I hope that someone Gian was talking about is another unknown character who’s really just as smart as Gian and the two’s roads clash at some point, now that’d be interesting).

As for the After Story, in continuing the main story of the main routes not only does Suganuma fail to build on what he has previously created; he also seems oblivious to what had made his stories so compelling to begin with. The characters and events were rather dull. The complexity of the plots carried over from the earlier stories bore little resemblance to themselves. (like people keep saying read "Dog stela dogs stella" before you binge Giulio's Afterstory because it'll give you a much better insight but actually I rather suggest you never read Dog stela dogs stella before playing Giulio's AS because you'll be left rather disappointed as hell for the story writing deterioration). Many points at the After stories were a straight rip off from the original routes or side stories as though repetition does not lead to desensitization at all, Gian had barely to no remarkable presence in half of the Afterstories and the other half trivialized the capos' romance with each other to a stereotypical extent. 

Previous LD1 stories, heck even the routes themselves, were hundred times better, enticing and thought provoking. Lucky Dog 1 was about sensible upper classes dealing with organized crime, handling situations like a game play with astounding personality expression while Badegg was a jumbled story about rebellious teenagers. 

Overall: Along with a couple other side stories, there was no standout about Badegg, so many story contrivances were inserted in the story-line merely to set up dramatic scenes following the obvious and unexplained acts of logic negligence. Much of the characterization was clichéd and predictable. The story dragged out, If you’re coming for a story about the Mafia, don’t bother, Badegg aint bout that. It’s about convincing yourself you can afford to waste an approximate of 70 hours of your life playing it. For a series that falls back far too often on cheap stereotypes and a very ungrounded interpretation of the world-setting to mask a writer’s creative bankruptcy, Badegg does hold its own compared to many works targeted at female audiences but definitely not compared to the original work.

Honestly, It’s sad when a series goes from “good” close to “masterpiece” and finally to “garbage”. There’s nothing worth seeing save for a story compelling enough for low-comprehensive audiences who never take a second look at the content you’re providing nor give anything but romance the mind of the day. The plot (what little unbelievable amount there is) barely holds together. Each scene is a variety of cringe, boring, and mediocre level.

Well the graphics/CGs were cool I guess, the soundtracks were literal bangers.

this post is 2k+ word, man

also don't make me get started on the entire voice change and how awful it was