Oh wow, did the first 5 battles then started in on Shu's Remembrance...
Those of Use in a Dream (also A Friend's Tears):
Okay, Shu just outright claims to be Tetsuya Ida in this scene. Although the only hesitation I have now is that during Tomi's Remembrance she doesn't have any memories of seeing the world destroyed in 2025 before being transported back to 1985. Also, in Those That Eat Cake Together, she visits her destroyed apartment for the first time but it is with Nenji Ogata, not Shu. Starting to think there is some serious memory tampering going along, also with some body swapping/personality transplant.
Had to get that out there before I moved any further.
So I finally got ready to battle again. But decided I would replay 2.5 so I could get the S rank. But Yuki was on rest. Even with a full team of 6, I couldn't take the bosses down quite fast enough. And I had poor timing with my tower EMP. Took near 5% each sentinel and tower damage and only got A rank.
I assumed I was going to win and started with Hijiyama, even though he was required for 2.6. I figured fine that would be good second mission. But when I decided to go for S rank one more time, I forgot to switch him out for Sekigahara.
So of course with Yuki back on my next try I finally got the S rank. She's a goddess. But oops now Hijiyama was on rest so I couldn't get 2.6 done with all bonus goals. So then a 4th run of 2.5, another easy S rank with Yuki. And I guess another free 30k meta chips to level up sentinels.
Anyway with the extra 2 unplanned runs I did not make it through 2.10 as I thought, but only through 2.6 last night. Paying attention to side goals I have everyone prepped for 2.7 and shouldn't lock myself out of 2.8, assuming S rank. It's mostly a fun puzzle to juggle, except for the max 4 sentinels goals, which put me in this spiral.
If I had known exactly what the mission entailed before, I would have made sure Yuki and Nenji were both available. And maybe Tomi, since she has a hard hitting beam but can clear waves too. The 4th would have had to be Goutu since he was required for a side goal but he's practically useless for the mission. His leg spike is a pale shadow of Yuki's quad spike. I'm still not sure I could have got S rank with that 4 sentinel squad but if anyone else wants to try that might save you repeats.
If you don't care about technical battle spoilers for 2.5...
It introduces Deimos bosses with armor. Any attack under 500 damage with do 0. And mission complete is killing 7 of those. They come in waves of 2-2-3. After killing the first 2 the whole map resets and refreshes your attacks for the next wave. So that's nice for using big hitters to kill and then immediately clear the next group. Save a tower EMP for the final 3 because they spawn closer to tower than any of the first 4.
Almost half of my sentinels don't even have an attack that does 500+ damage. None of the Gen 2s and only Yuki/Renya from Gen 4. Funny enough for the Gen 1s it's the default rush attack that cost 0 to use, as long as you've upgraded it 3 or 4 times. My Hijiyama barely had his doing enough, but since it's not armor piercing it wasn't always working. I had to do back attacks with him to get the bonus damage high enough to punch through.
All of the Gen 3s have the railguns, which do 500+ but over an area. So they can help clear some of the trash and attack the bosses both. Tomi probably has the advantage here if you unlocked her condenser because it fires twice and both will hit. Keitaro mega railgun does similar big damage but I think EP cost is more. Nat unfortunately sucks for this fight.
Sorry for all the words but it's the only battle of 16 after prologue that I failed to get S rank, playing on intense.
Lol so 2 of the next 4 battles I got A rank and had to redo. On one several ranged enemies got by and damaged the tower. On another the boss enemy did too much damage to my melee sentinels. Just shifting the party around and not worrying about side goals again made for easy S rank.
I also finally had my first 0-0-0 damage mission. Even when I've had 0 sentinel or tower damage there would always be 0.4% city damage or something tiny like that.
So up through 2.10 done and now time to close out a few stories. Juro Kurabe 100% complete!
Of course the damn cat is Shiba/Izumi.
Nice 4th wall breaking about a Deimos game and meta chips, hah.
And WTF was that one loop ago? Still not sure exactly what is happening...
Seems at the end Juro is at some kind of balance with old memories.
I went to Megumi story next but could not finish. I did one scene at 85% where I saw the other side of the Juro scene I just did. But she had one more after that I still need to do.
So this afternoon I finished all Remembrances that you can finish up through 2.10. There's on person left that needs 3.5 to unlock, and one other person that needs that person's story beat to unlock.
So that's it. 11 of 13 done. Big spoilers if you're not this far.
I have a few answers and a lot of questions.
Ok yes it's further ahead than 2188. But damn Tomi, 1800 years?! How? What? So everyone started this automated project and left it for a while and now we're at the end and it's getting screwed up? Sheesh.
The basic bits seem to make sense. Ida was an asshole, used Ryoko to implement his sabotage plan, ok. We're basically dealing with fallout from creepy guy trying to remake android girlfriend multiple times. Damn. EDIT: Oh right part of it was on Ryoko, after being spurned, she set off the kaiju to attack.
Is Chihori really helping with Aegis though? Renya seems to think she's full of shit in his first few scenes. I'm a little fuzzy on if we're still on her plan or not. Izumi seems to be the one that used Megumi to enable everyone to use sentinels for this to even have a chance. And he seemed like the bad guy in a lot of scenes, but... is 426 really bad, not Izumi? Does everyone think Ida's sabotage is from 426 and misplace blame?
I need to read through timeline again now that it's mostly full and make sure I'm following heh.
Tomi/Inaba seems to think she can take control of things though, and save us all, if we can just hold out for 14 more hours.
Guess I will go back to battles and find out. Should see the end in a day or two.
You've been ripping through this game! As for me, I barely played any this weekend. I like the game, I'm just not in the mood for videogames these days for some reason.
Final battle last night. Failed. Twice. Trying to get my melee sentinels too close to boss and not finishing it off fast enough and them dying from boss AOE attack. Very annoying. Nenji the first time, Yuki the second.
Looked around and that seems like the right strategy, I just wasn't using all my tools...
There's an attack boost power for the tower and everyone recommends using it on your 2 or 3 melee sentinels that you send to fight the boss. Should be able to kill it in 1-2 turns that way.
I haven't even bought that power because EMP and instant cooldown have been all I've needed to this point. Hopefully if I reload my save I have enough spare points to buy it without having to go do another battle.
So I will try again at lunch and maybe be finished.
The last bit of remembrance after 3.5 was interesting. With everyone at 100% I think I know what is happening now but there was still a curve ball from one of the final stories that I'm confused about.
Saying everyone is in some pods and nothing is real, matrix style? Seemed to come out of nowhere. Plus what's the whole point of terraforming machines if we're living virtual? Just didn't fit much with all the other story twists and turns I thought. Hoping for more clarification in epilogue.
Don't try to finish the game at lunch. It takes way longer than an hour for the final battle, epilogue, and scene after scene that plays during the credits. Like dang. They disabled pause button too. But you could press PS button for menu and it would pause, or press the pad to bring up dialogue history and pause that way.
Still took me a while to get through it and get back to work.
It unlocked a completed save and mentioned there were more memories to check and some post game battle something. Have to check it all out later. Looks like I'm only missing 2 trophies and one is all mystery files. The other is 100% upgrades which I might be close on. Have to see if I want to do any post game whatever just for platinum.
Pretty awesome game though. More later after I read the last bits.
Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that exceptionally long ending. I had started the process after midnight thinking it would be a quick slam-dunk before bed. No.
Nice. All the extra mystery files I had converted to over 2 million meta chips after I did the first bonus battle.
I'm missing the one achievement for upgrading everyone. So you have to use meta chips to unlock powers, even if you're not using or equipping them. Everyone has 2 powers. Here was a post with the list. And you also have to have all the tower things unlocked, which I did with all those extra chips. But lastly you also have to have every sentinel's passive power. Which means you have to get everyone to level 30. I had 2 characters around 25, one at 28... and Renya, at 15. Doh. His skills sucked and he wasn't in much of the story so I just never rotated him in that often.
So I ran through the first 4 bonus missions, getting him up to 25 or so. Then mission 5... holy shit. I got absolutely wrecked, and failed from a sentinel pilot dying. Twice. Buffed my sentinels stats a lot in between tries, even though I still have over a million meta chips left. Didn't help. There's some new battle mechanics that happen in those bonus boss missions. I'm not sure I really want to get into it.
Think I might just repeat missions 4.1 through 4.4, get Renya to 30 and call this game done with my trophy. The battles were fun but I don't need some excruciating difficulty to slog through another 20 missions postgame. I don't know that there's any story reward, and there's no trophy. Doesn't seem fun. I enjoyed the game and would like to leave it at that, with one last trophy.
So first off: Stele, are you done! If so, congratulations! Let me know and I'll get you leveled up.
Second: I played a bunch more this morning: several more Remembrances for Megumi Yakushiji and one more for Juro Kurabe. I'm now above 50% on Megum, Juro, and Iori. I also have decent progress with Natsuno and Shu. Here's what else I've learned:
Megumi's path: A really interesting send-up of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, complete with an evil cat. Megumi seems to be inspired by Homura. I loved when the cat asked if I'd feel better with a magic wand and a pretty pink dress.
The cat is definitely targeting the protagonists / Sentinel pilots, and the suggestion that coming into contact with Keitaro corrupts people might persuade me to play his story segment next. I'm curious about the cat's endgame, here. It seems like it is trying to summon Sentinels to 1985 in preparation for the final battle, especially given that this happened right after Megumi shot Shu with the "magic gun." Maybe, after the things I learned on Gouto's path, it is working with Chihiro Morimura? But then, there are other targets that Megumi shot which did not appear to immediately have their sentinel summoned, so I don't know what to make of that.
I'm also curious about the one target that Megumi failed to shoot, which I think was Ei Sekigahara. I wonder if that will be significant?
Juro's path:
It's kind of interesting how several of his paths dead-end! I actually missed the dead-ends the first time around and, when I went back to flesh out the event tree, ran into them.The "Juro Izumi" version of himself that he is dreaming about (and Iori, too), and that Megumi wants to protect, certainly seems older. He looks older and more muscular, and is voiced more gruffly. Given the revalations on Renya Gouto's path, perhaps Juro Kurabe is a clone of Juro Izumi, or someone into whom Juro Izumi's memories were implanted?
Gouto's path: seems like it really lays out a lot of what has been happening behind the scenes, and will be interesting to see how I can pluck at threads going forward. We've got an explanation of the innerlocitors (nanomachines) that apparently can affect memories, or even hijack people's minds, and are apparently necessary to sync with the Sentinels. An introduction of Shikishima in 2188, which is farther forward than anyone can travel. We've got a mention of cloning, which might explain the different versions of Juro and of Iori. We've got Chihiro Morimura name droped Tetsuya Ida a couple of times, is responsible for the final battle that is meant to save her and "him" (Juro?), and that the President of Shikishima circa 2188, who might also be Gouto, is the person who put out a hit on Morimura. Honestly, this whole section seems really dense!
The idea of not trusting digital information is an interesting one, though -- as is hijacking people's bodies and changing their memories. Really makes you wonder what information to trust. And I'm very curious about when and how the kaiju problem began, because it does not seem to be an issue in 2188, or at least it isn't mentioned then. And the kaiju seem to have the ability to time travel too. The game's Analysis section suggests that they first appeared in 2104 but then they were first battled in 2064, or something like that.
And here's where I've got story available, or hard locks barring my way forward:
- Ei Sekigahara, Keitaro Miura, Nenji Ogata, Yuki Takamiya, Ryoko Shinonome - available
- Natsuno Minami - Complete Yuki Takamiya's Girl With Red Glasses Event
- Takatoshi Hijiyama - Complete Nenji Ogata's Victims of Poison Event
- Shu Amiguchi - Complete Natsuno Minami's Exterminator Event
- Megumi Yakushiji - Complete Juro Kurabe's Juro Kurabe Event
- Juro Kurabe - Need 9 protagonists with > 30% story progress (have 5)
- Iori Fuyusaka - Need 8 protagonists with > 60% story progress (have 2)
- Renya Gouto - 12 protagonists with > 80% story progress (have 1) - as there are only 12 other people, Gouto's story must be one of the final to be completed
So, I would guess that a few of the protagonists I've barely touched will unlock more for the others, plus Juro. Iori and Renya's next story segments must come near the end, as those look like pretty hefty unlock conditions -- and in Renya's case, since I can't get his up to 80% without unlocking him again, this means that basically everyone else's stories must be done, or almost done, before his resumes. Interesting!
Yes platinum achieved. Whew
Re your second spoiler
Yes Renya has to be last. It's interesting though, there's one other person tied to battle 3 mission 5 as a lock. And I think someone else tied to one of their stories. So if you pursue everyone 100% those will be the final 3. I was very methodical in my unlock every remembrance, do 5 battles, unlock every remembrance, do 5 battles cycle to the end.
I think at one point I just had too many stories floating around so I did 5 battles because it had been like 2-3 days real time and nearly 10 hours game time since I had battled. I just needed a reading break hehe.
But aside from that one time I followed the 100%, then 5 battles rule.
Made it through all of the Remembrances available after 1-5, which puts me at 73% story completion, with one character fully cleared. Still only have six people at >80% completion, so not expecting Gouto to unlock until 2-10 is done. I probably should have thrown a thought post together last weekend when I got most of the way complete, as a lot of it is no longer fresh in my mind to discuss anymore. Can't do any story until I reach 2-5, so it is 10 battles in a row before I get more Remembrance.
Thoughts up to this point (73% total completion):
I am definitely on the "no time travel" at this point and each "time period" is just a different section of some kind of space ship or colony. We even get to see in Shu's story that going 30km from the center of town ends in massive steel walls, that you normally cannot see. During that scene, Yuki and Shu have the exact same memories of childhood, which with the memory manipulation technology available, I think are implanted memories in everyone.
Where Kisaragi's story ended at this point made me really sad. Miwako is such a wonderful character, for the computer to just remove her because she left her sector made me sad.
I forget whose story it came up in, but Yuki is apparently Natsuno's mom! Did not see that one coming at all. So all the protagonists at least are likely clones or DNA created versions of the protagonists from 2188, given the setting they wanted to live in. At least that's my take. Some of them chose other people they wanted to be with, which might explain the like 30 Chihiros running around.
I just realized something about the pills Ei (and possibly Ryoko) has been taking. He was given them by the Kisaragi android in 2085, but no one else was around at that point, so based on other information we have, that is almost certainly 426. He is supposedly the creator of the code in the nanomachines deleting everyone's memories. So do those pills actually do what they are claimed to do, or are they serving some ulterior purpose?
Still don't love Megumi's decisions, but less convinced "Fluffy" is absolutely evil at this point. He says he's trying to get everyone ready to fight the Kaiju and that's why Megumi is shooting people, to restart their Sentinel control process. Fluffy could be lying about this, but the scene where she shoots Shu seems to support this.
This morning I played the first three of Nenji Ogata's stories. Choosing him, next, was an interesting one, as the only protagonist I don't have unlocked at this point is Tomi Kisaragi.
Before posting some spoiler-tagged thoughts, I just want to put out there that I had confused Ogata with that gang leader, who's name I couldn't remember, the other guy with the pompadour. That made me a lot less interested in checking him out. But, they're not the same guy at all! Man, there were a lot of characters thrown out in the opening hours. And the advice in this guide to play this game without interruption, and avoid splitting time between games, was spot on.
And about those first three paths for Nenji:
I've done the prologue, followed Iori onto the train, and persuaded Kisaragi to get off the train before it crashed (in that order, although I think chronologically the game puts persuading Kisaragi before following Iori).
I feel like these paths would have been wild and confusing without information I've gleaned from Megumi and Renya; the context definitely helps. It's really valuable to have seen Renya first chapter, for instance, before I stepped onto the train in the Iori path and saw a character shift from child clone of Morimura, to Iori Fuyusaka, then to Ms. Morimura in black.
So I guess not only can the Sentinels travel through time -- which we know from other sequences -- but they can also act as terminals and send their riders back through time? That's what I've learned from seeing Nenji relive the same moment on the train platform over and over again. Or, maybe his mind is being controlled, or he is forced to perceive things through the nanomachines in his body? After all, each time he goes back, we don't see an additional Nenji on the platform. So it doesn't seem like there are two versions him are present at the same time, but instead more like his consciousness is being projected back into that earlier version of himself.
The person whose voice we hear, as Nenji returns to the Sentinel and is sent back in time, sure does sound a lot like Tsukasa Okino.
Interesting to see that Morimura found Nenji as a kid and shot him with the same kind of gun that Megumi has been using in 1985! If Morimura's comments can be trusted, Nenji-the-kid already had nanomachines in him. Curious to know how that would have happened. And also, I don't fully understand the purpose of the gun, yet, but I had thought the cat's purpose in giving Megumi the gun was to prompt the final battle, and summon Sentinels to the present (1985). And we know from Gouto's prologue that Morimura's goal is to prompt the final battle, too. If that's the case, why shoot Nenji with that gun when he was a kid, 8 or 9 years before that battle was to happen?
The Kaiju that Nenji and Tomi see walking around, as they flee the train, sure look like machines -- and, in fact, like Sentinels.
Nenji Groundhog Day was a lot of fun.
I, too, had early confusion on Nenji and gang dude that Nenji likes to fight.
And the advice in this guide to play this game without interruption, and avoid splitting time between games, was spot on.
Yeah, that's why I haven't jumped in with both feet yet. This one is up next after I finish Starfield (which will be SoonTM. And it's a bit hard to keep up with the discussion since all the good stuff is in spoilers. I'll have to try to read along once I get up and going.
Nenji's story is a really good one. It's where my opinion on some characters started to shift quite a bit.
Strangely, I had no problem keeping Nenji and Wajima separate. Probably because of the uniforms?
And yeah, this game is really hard to talk about outside spoilers, and even in them with people who don't have all the information you do, since after a few hours it starts to meld together.
With that being said, interesting thought, not sure how story relevant it is, but does include information up to full story completion post 1-5.
Through all these different Remembrances and time period, we see several different relationships. In Nenji's memories, we have him and Tomi in a budding relationship, but in Shu's, he and Tomi are in a relationship. We see Iori/Murimura in a relationship with at least Juro and Ei, but then in 2065 Juro is in a relationship with Megumi. And aside from the 1985 version of Megumi/Juro, all these relationships seem to be reciprocated by both sides without weird love triangle stuff going on. Based on a few of these 1985 versions getting memories from other versions of themselves, makes me wonder how those relationships are going to impact the current characters.
Just did Keitaro to 87% (Last Wish) and Ei to 85% (The Message).
Some big reveals here. During Keitaro's story, we get confirmation that we are not actually time traveling, but are on a section space colony with each sector being a different time era. We also get a hint as to why this is. Something happened in 2188 with nanomachine technology that is apparently causing people to seek a solution to preserving humanity. I forget where it was mentioned (might be a mystery file), but the colony is based on Project Ark, which way back in Ryoko's prologue, we learn she sabotaged.
During Ei's story, he meets up with Tetsuya Ida in 2025 and is instructed to find Sentinel 17 using the Miura drone. We also learn that the sectors are designed to be attacked by Kaiju every 16 years and then "reset" back to base function. No idea the purpose of this, but several people have avoided the reset by going to Sector 0 (I assume the center of the colony), where they don't get reset, but instead of reinserted to the sectors as simulated personalities. I still do not trust Ida at all, he is extremely sketchy.
I feel like there are too many people calling Chihiro's plan to active Aegis wrong, she is feeling very much like a scapegoat. The log from 2188 between Ei and Gouto kind of reinforces this, that Gouto hired Ei to assassinate Chihiro as her plans for the colony were threatening Gouto's business (yay corporations...). 2188 Gouto seemed to be up to some real shady practices.
I have a theory that Ida and Gouto are actually the same person. They have similar speech patterns, and are the only people that use the kun honorific for the female students. I may be reading too much into it.
Hehehe
Ida is somebody alright.
Just did Takatoshi's Destroyer of Worlds event...
And it looks like Project Ark is some kind of simulation program meant to either be humanity's future or simulate life until they reach a new planet or something, not too sure there yet. But, the simulation it is running is using the code base for an old survival game based in a Kaiju attack. Okino said he disabled the Kaiju, but my guess is that when Ryoko sabotaged the program, she turned the Kaiju invasions back on. So, these loops that everyone is living through, is really just the game, and when the Kaiju reach their goal, that's a game over, so the game restarts. So Chihiro's plan to activate the Aegis system is you "winning" the game, thus ending the simulation. I wonder what that will do to the world...
I could be off-base on those assumptions, but that's what I put together from the information just presented in those two sections (and everything previously).
I took Tomi Kisaragi and Ryoko Shinonome as far as they can go, today. With that, it looks like I have 3 more protagonists to dive into before moving on to 1-5, and catching up on some spoilered content: Ei, Yuki, and Keitaro. I’ll write up some thoughts on Tomi and Ryoko tomorrow — still processing
I meant to write some up yesterday as I plowed through some more stories, but must have closed the browser window with my notes. After a bit more this morning, I'm at 50% in Rememberance mode and getting close to where I have to play some battles to advance, I think. Exact progress in the spoiler section:
Available
Ei Sekigahara - 14%, unlocked
Natsuno Minami - 37%, unlockable, complete Yuki's Girl With Red Glasses event
--
Maybe Available Without Battling
Shu Amiguchi - 42%, locked, complete Natsuno's Exterminator event
Yuki Takamiya - 57%, locked, complete Natsuno's Exterminator event
Ryoko Shinonome - 75%, locked, complete Shu's A Specter Reborn event
Juro - 77%, locked, complete Yuki's A Conscious Criminal event
Megumi Yakushiji - 71%, locked, complete Juro's Juro Kurabe event
--
Not Available Until After Battling
Keitaro Mirua - 37%, locked, complete 1-5
Nenji Ogata - 37%, locked, complete 1-5
Takatoshi Hijiyama - 14%, locked, complete Nenji's Victims of Poison event
Tomi Kisaragi - 75%, locked, complete 2-10
Iori - 85%, locked, complete 60% story progress with 8 protagonists (at 5)
Renya Gouto - 14%, locked, complete 80% story progress with 12 protagonists
I'll follow up with some story notes when I get time at work. But man, things are getting crazy!
All right, so some thoughts based on my progress above:
After seeing the first couple of Keitaro Miura scenes, my current crazy theory is that the 13 protagonists pilots aren't time traveling at all. Instead, we're all in the future (2188 or whenever) and on a planet that's been terraformed by Shikishima, and which has been built to contain districts that reflect certain parts of the past. When the protagonists time travel, they're just popping around spatially, not temporally. This would explain a few key things:
- Why protagonists can only go to certain specific time periods, often 40 years forward or back
- Why the kaiju / daimos / terraforming machines are able to travel through time (actually, they aren't)
- Why those machines came to earth from whatever planet they were terraforming (they didn't)
- Why it isn't a problem for Juro / Iori / everyone's present that the kaiju showed up in Japan near the end of, before the end of the war
- The whole "dent in the beam" thing
For a brief moment, my other theory on why there were kaiju on mainland Japan during WW2, but no one in 1985 remembered it and Japan wasn't totally wrecked, is that the kaiju happened to show up in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and were destroyed by the atomic bombs dropped there.
I find it really interesting, and kind of telling, that the cutaway scene of Keitaro Miura and Natsuno Minami -- as crew on the spacecraft -- don't actually show up in Keitaro or Natsuno's personal timelines, even though they show up on the master timeline. This strongly suggests, to me, that they aren't actually the same person.
I also wish that I had written something here before the Juro / Kyuta Shiba reveal, because I wanted to say that I was skeptical of that guy! And, in fact, I've been skeptical of every character who isn't a protagonist -- that includes Erika Aiba and Miwako, whose last name I forget but that I don't want to look up for fear of spoilers. I got the Erika-isn't-there reveal right before I unlocked Juro and got his QTA story beat, which just felt like great timing. And it seems like Erika looks a lot like "granny" Tamao Kurabe.
My jaw just about dropped when Tamao was introduced back in the '40s, and when Keitaro mentioned that Chihiro was his kid sister, by the way. I wonder what it would have been like to have played as Keitaro early, and viewed the story through this lens.
There's a lot to rave about, and to unpack, but to wrap up I'll just also say that I loved Detective Yuki's story, loved playing as Ryoko and questioning what was real--and seeing the reveal that shse might be the traitor (but what about 426?).
I’m off, and I’ve dropped about 2.5 hours into the game so far, enough to get through the tutorial. Now it looks looks like I can start choosing protagonists and if I want to do combat missions now. So far I’m loving both the artstyle and the voice acting. Obviously I don’t know anything yet, but there’s lots of threads floating out there, and I'm enjoying the mystery.
Super early spoiler thoughts:
so I’ll buy that we have timeline and multi-dimensional shenanigans going on, sure, why not. It’s probably not that simple. But the one thing that confuses me is the twintails girl, Tomi I think? She was in the first session in 1984 with Juro, then showed up again with Megumi when Juro's sentinel crashed into 2024, and she looked the same. Same person just time traveling, or maybe it's a clone or something? That seemed to be just slid in there nonchalantly, but it seems like somethings going on there. I think it’s the same person, at least.
Yeah I think a lot of the story can make more/less sense depending on what order you do the 13 stories. Sometimes there's a lock for another person's story, so things have to go in a certain order. But other times you can just bounce around and get pieces of other stories.
That is very true. I feel like I got an early look into a lot of the mysteries going on by jumping into Natsuno's and Yuki's story first. So when I went to other characters, I saw things slightly differently than other people.
Couple other comments and theories, and then a progress update. I've played more of Natsuno, to the point where I've unlocked Shu and Yuki again. Made a little progress with Juro and Ei. I want to flag a couple big story beats and another theory or two:
Random thoughts:
LOVED seeing the damage to the girls' bathroom on Yuki's route, then witnessing the cause on Natsuno's.Tomi the android makes a lot of sense after what we saw early in Shu's route.
I got stuck in a loop of Shiba wiping Juro's memories, and am not totally sure how to get out of that. I'm going to advance in other areas before coming back to Juro.
It's fascinating that BJ is either piloted by Keitaro, or shares Keitaro's consciousness, or something like that. Love that twist! Clearly, he is watching out for Natsuno. I remember some buff for them fighting together, too.
Thoughts on theories:
After the couple of scenes I unlocked with Natsuno, I am even more sold on the idea that there is no actual time travel. Assuming characters have good information and are telling the truth, those scenes seem to confirm that we're on a colonized, terraformed planet and that we're far in the future, which was part of the basis for my theory. And it makes sense that the characters are all clones, androids, or somehow replicants of people who actually lived in Japan and were part of Shikishima, or were part of the colony ship endeavor. What's unclear is why the ship would try to replicate times from their past lives, and why it would place them in times when they didn't live. There also appears to be some kind of endless loop / break the cycle thing going on that I don't yet understand.It's interesting to see android Tomi explain to Ei that he's infected, and to hear the talk about hunting 426. I feel like there has to be some link between sabotaging the Sentinels and Ryoko's viewing of the video where her adult self sought revenge on Tetsuya Ida, and also between Megami going around shooting people with the "magic" gun. Maybe the magic gun is meant to cure or override the infection or--alternately--to spread it? I'm not really trying to figure out who's betraying who, to be honestly, mostly just trying to follow the overall narrative. On this thread, I feel like I'm just along for the ride.
New theory:
Also want to throw down another prediction: I think that Ei Sekigahara is either a clone of Juro Kurabe / Juro Izumi, or perhaps is the real Juro Izumi. The two character models look similar, and I think Ei looks and sounds more like the older version of Juro Izumi, in the flashbacks, than Juro Kurabe does. Plus, Iori seems really drawn to him and professes her love for him, and we know that she's some kind of clone / replicant of Chihiro Morimura, and there is that history between Morimura and Izumi. It seems appropriate that this other version of Morimura would seek out another version of Izumi -- and, I think, that's Ei.Honestly that theory has been floating around in my head for a bit, which is part of the reason I've saved Ei's stuff for so long.
A little bit farther now:
Available
Ei Sekigahara - 42%, unlocked
Juro - 77%, unlocked, but a little stuck in a loop
Iori Fuyusaka - 85%, unlockable
Shu Amiguchi - 42%, unlockable
--
Maybe Available Without Battling
Ryoko Shinonome - 75%, locked, complete Shu's A Specter Reborn event
Megumi Yakushiji - 71%, locked, complete Juro's Juro Kurabe event
--
Not Available Until After Battling
Keitaro Mirua - 37%, locked, complete 1-5
Nenji Ogata - 37%, locked, complete 1-5
Takatoshi Hijiyama - 14%, locked, complete Nenji's Victims of Poison event
Natsuno Minami - 62%, locked, complete 2-5
Yuki Takamiya - 85%, locked, complete Natsuno's A Closed World event
Tomi Kisaragi - 75%, locked, complete 2-10
Renya Gouto - 14%, locked, complete 80% story progress with 12 protagonists
Got everyone's routes to the point where I have to battle, so battle I shall! But first, wanted to shoutout one of my favorite scenes so far: Shu and Nenji on the rooftop.
(paraphrasing)
Shu: Hey man, what's bothering you?
Nenji: Remember when I missed a few days of school? Well ... I time traveled to the future.
Shu: Get serious, man.
Nenji: Didn't think he'd believe me.Nenji: So, what's bothering you, anyway?
Shu: That idol is talking to me through my TV.
Nenji: Um, ... okay ...
Shu: Didn't think he'd believe me.
That scene was very good.
Finished everything available with 2-5 complete.
Total progress 85%:
Juro: 88% locked by 2-10
Iori: cleared
Megumi: 71% locked by Juro Kurabe (Juro) event
Ei: cleared
Renya: 14% locked all others at 80%
Natsuno: cleared
Keitaro: cleared
Takatoshi: 85% locked by Hypocrisy (Renya)
Nenji: cleared
Tomi: 75% locked by 2-10
Shu: 85% locked by 2-10
Ei's Fanning Shot:
This is pretty interesting. Chihiro says that this is the final loop as the system is at its breaking point and Sector 0 will be lost if the world resets again. Since this world is supposedly built on a survival game from the 80s, this sounds like they are on their last "life" as games from back then were almost universally built around lives and that arcade mentality. If that's true, it would be "Game Over" and no player outside to restart the "game" and go again. Neat little point if true.
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