I've barely had any time to play, but I finally got into Hijiyama's prologue, which has brought 2 shining lights to me thus far:
Yakisoba pan, & non-binary representation via Okino. Here's hoping Okino isn't a secret baddie, but I'm just glad they're here.
4 prologues and battles down, this is getting very interesting.
EDIT: Make that 6 and 6
Of course, as soon as I settle in to play this, I get distracted by something else - I'm diving deep into Sea of Stars right now, and per a walkthrough I'm a little more than halfway through. Will be back soon!
Confession: As soon as I was offered, I switched the strategy segments to casual, and I don't see myself going anywhere else.
I'm confused as heck, but I'm liking the game so far. Those 2D graphics are a sight to behold.
This seems like a really awesome spoiler free tips article
Talks about playing story parts first before battle and then strategy for each of the 4 mech types. Plus it mentions a couple of special cases, like one of the railgun mechs gets the ability to fire twice in one turn.
Feel a lot more ready to finish the prologue and fight on my own after reading that.
Ok prologue done so I chose Juro to start more story with. Wow.
This is reminding me a bit of Radiant Historia. Because there's no way all of these branching paths can all happen right?
Still it's really cool. And looking at the branch it gives you hints with the key items, whether you have them, found them, or not seen them yet. I'm loving the puzzle and now really want to avoid spoilers and figure things out.
Like getting your best friend to go away so you can talk to Iori. I missed it the first time but still got a new scene. Then next time I got it.
And the flashback scene at home gave me so many more questions. And the dream scene holy sh*t. I'm going to guess we're dealing with some alternative timelines and hopefully we can sort out another path to win. That was intense though.
Did another segment of playing today and went further into Yuki Takamiya's and Natsuno Minami's stories.
Spoilers through "Mistaken Identity" and "A Conscious Criminal"
Okay, so all the extra versions of people are apparently not alternate dimension or weird time-shift clones, but androids. Who made them and why is still a huge question, but Juro Izumi (who I think in one of the prologues someone said is now Juro Kurabe) transferred his consciousness to one of them at some point and was in the Tomi Kisaragi one during the bathroom incident but then transferred to Tamao during the scuffle and implanted something in Natsuno (a pilot mark? Need to see where her pilot mark is).
It also sounds like Miura either transferred his consciousness into a distributed robot network, or created an AI based on him that is inside all the "BJ" robots.
The Ms. Morimura from Shu's prologue finally makes an appearance, and it looks like she is the same as the school nurse? Still not sure the whole situation with her since she is both suppressing some people's memories but also restoring others? It sounded like some of the pilots went nuts in the future and caused the whole invasion thing? Still not clear on that.
During Mistaken Identity BJ plays a recording from 2188 of what looks like an older Natsuno and Nenji and claims that Natsuno may actually be an alien sent back from some kind of interplanetary travel experiment. My big confusion here is that BJ says the recording is from 2188 but says when they are in 2065 that they are further in the future than when it was recorded. Maybe it is some kind of mistranslation or something?
Edit: I should probably dig into Juro's now so I can keep up with where Stele is headed.
I guess I just kind of made the circle. Started with Juro so started with him again. Can't decide if I'm ready to fight yet or not. Feels like I have a few meta chips to spend but I haven't got in there to see how much upgrades cost yet.
I did Iori chapter after I posted this morning during lunch break. I actually got infuriated by the controls and interface and trying to trigger something. Had to go watch a video.
There was one really awkward part because there are 2 other students there and it seems like you can only talk to 1. The interface seemed like it wouldn't let me talk to the other and it had to get to a certain conversation topic before you could. But I felt like I was stuck in a loop and could not get out until I checked for help. But to progress the event at all on either path you have to initiate conversation with the student on the right, and they will ask you to choose which food to go eat.
Trying not to spoiler much but also to warn others if they get stuck. There's another event that seems to happen but you can't do anything with it until after going to eat.
Just in case anyone else gets stuck.
So I finished up all the available remembrances before first battle. Pushed almost all of them to locked status, needing mystery files or battles or events to proceed. Juro's isn't locked but I don't know how to find the item for one missing branch I see, so I was going to skip it for now.
Then when I finished the last one of Natsuno's story... it unlocked a prologue for Keitaro. And then finishing that unlocked a first branch for him. So I did all that late last night, and still haven't done a post-prologue battle. But I have like 40k meta chips, so should be able to do some upgrades today before I fight.
So I finished up all the available remembrances before first battle. Pushed almost all of them to locked status, needing mystery files or battles or events to proceed. Juro's isn't locked but I don't know how to find the item for one missing branch I see, so I was going to skip it for now.
If it is the one I am thinking of for "Get Rid of Shiba" then it is likely...
The stack of papers sitting on the desk at the front of the classroom. You use them on Shiba and then can go to the nurse's office.
Yeah I got that part but then there's another branch within that that requires an item I haven't seen yet. And not sure what it means by the chart. I'll figure it out or look it up eventually.
I finished up another Keitaro branch this morning and I'm starting to have suspicions about EVERYTHING!
Are we really in 2188?
Anyway I finally fought a couple battles, on intense. Stupidly on the 2nd one I didn't notice that a character was required for the bonus mission. So I'm going to redo that probably.
But I dumped a bunch of chips into meta level 7 and then a bunch more into 2 ranks of meta multiplier. Then I upgraded or added 1 attack for each of the first 6 I was fighting with.
1st fight was over in under 30 seconds just line the prologue. 2nd I screwed up and took a ground unit when everything was aerial. He was worthless and it took me 45 seconds to clear all. But still got S rank on both.
So finished up 5 battles from the first set last night, since that is what was needed for Remembrance unlocks (2 for someone 5 for someone else). Also unlock 3 and 6 mystery chips were needed for 2 more locks. So I used a few of the 10 files I earned from fighting to unlock a few.
Battle 4? I think it was had challenge requirement to win with only 4 mechs. And there were 3 flying carriers. I took Yuki to be my carrier killer, and Juro and Iori as my sentry partners. Iori also had an EMP skill already for knocking down fliers. Then Tomi for the railgun. And she hit level 5 before that, and her first passive is a boost when either Iori or Megumi is in the team. So I'm already seeing the "pairing up certain units" strategy.
I actually failed the first time on Intense. I overextended Yuki without enough sentry support, and her sentinel got damaged and she ejected. Before I could even start running something gunned her down for instant failure. Oops. Took a little more care in sentry placement and cautiously moving Yuki up the next time and S ranked no problem. Only 1-2% sentinel damage that time.
I'm enjoying the battles. And that no spoiler tips article I posted before definitely gave some good pointers on where to spend early points.
EDIT: That may be out of date. Some posts in reddit talk about differences for Switch version and that got patched to PS4 version later. 1 key is that sentry guns got nerfed. They might be ok on Ryoku, who still gets 2 for 1. But for Juro and Iori, basically don't use them anymore. And a guide with priority upgrades. Also there's a combat guide on GameFAQs, which says it's updated for PS4 patch too.
Ryoko has a passive to launch 2 sentry guns at once for 100 EP extra.
Tomi has a passive to shoot 2 railguns in one turn for 100 EP extra.
Yuki has a counter skill plus an armor skill that ignores anything under 500 damage. So she becomes immune to little swarms basically and kills them all too.
So back to Remembrances late last night... and I think I finished a path on Iori that unlocked another character's prologue. There's a lot going on here. I was up too late and drifting on the couch so I stopped and saved mid-story. Hopefully I can use the dialog history and remember WTF I was doing today hehe.
I think my guess above might be right...
Anyway crazy things happened in story today. Mostly from early bits of Keitaro, Shu, Yuki, and Tomi stories. General spoilers without naming names:
A child is actually a clone of someone else!
One girl is her friend's mom!
One guy grows up to be CEO of an evil corporation
One guy puts the AI personality of his (presumed dead) girlfriend into a cyborg.
I think that same cyborg exploded in another part of the story...
I'm kind of blown away here. So many things happening and so many connections. And there was some stuff from 2065
people getting nanobots in their heads
that probably have a lot to do with why people don't seem to remember their past or future or both and that a lot of things are only seen in dreams.
This story is really something special. Glad you’re (presumably) enjoying it.
And a guide with priority upgrades. Also there's a combat guide on GameFAQs, which says it's updated for PS4 patch too.
Both of these were useful last night. The reddit one has a couple priority powers for everyone. The FAQ has a bit more explanation and a best 6 things to equip in priority order list. Some characters the last 3 spots are "whatever" because the core powers are all you need. But either way it helps not waste meta chips. I also used this list of bonus objectives. I don't want to repeat battles for that so I can look ahead 1 or 2 battles and see x is required or y type only, so I can shuffle and not have them on forced rest when I need them. I'm sure there's some optimal path out there for keeping partners together and hitting all bonuses. But I don't have to be perfect. I am good with the list.
I ran through 5 more battles to finish area 1 last night. I probably should have done a bit more story first because at the end of battle 10 someone showed up that I had only briefly interacted with. Think I was missing one more scene maybe, to make it make sense.
Got meta chip multiplier maxed out though, so I was getting like 20k+ every fight. Was able to upgrade a lot of characters and get several of the new powers you get from making a base power +4. And using the ultra wide railgun was fantastic haha. It covers like 25% of the entire map. Got the kill 150 enemies with one action achievement the second time I fired it last night.
Anyway back to stories for a while. Area 2 combat was locked for overall story %.
I figured out the other Juro story stuff and got him to locked. Needs 9 protagonists at 30% story or better to proceed. I'm at 6. So working on my neglected ones today at lunch.
Oh sh*t. Follow up from my last spoiler, there's more than one
Exterminator
!
Got to see more of what went down in the bathroom. Whoa.
I think my guess above might be right...
Close but not quite. Got a bit farther with Nat and BJ story. Big spoilers! Don't click if not 50% done with Natsuno story
Looks like we're all really on a colony ship or maybe even on a new planet post 2188.
I was starting to suspect after one of the Deimos was described as a terraforming machine at some point. Then another Nat and Keitaro scene where they were in space in 2188 was what got me on this path originally. And all this Shikishima stuff has been pointing to them building everything on both sides of this fight.
Also from BJ and some other sector comments I suspect we are not really jumping through different times as much as going to different parts of the ship/planet. Something popped up in battle 10 when citizens were evacuated that suggested this to me too.
Still a lot of details unclear. More pieces to put together. I'm know for sure one person is going by different names in different times but I suspect a couple more. The mystery files help a bit keeping things straight. Whew.
Am I the only one playing?
Forgive the consecutive posts but I just hit Juro 75% or so and holy sh*t.
Fight Club!
Definitely taking lots of pieces from lots of other stories but remixing them in cool ways.
Like I got into Nenjis story about halfway yesterday. They have a whole
Groundhog Day
thing going on. Very fun.
Also I pushed the battles up to 2nd sector battle 5. That's the first mission I didn't get S rank on and it was so bad I got C rank. Never had more than 3% terminal damage and maybe 5% sentinel damage one other time. But this one spiked to 15 or 20% each. I think it's mostly because one of the bonus objectives was only take 4 sentinels. I took Yuki and her quad leg was 1-shotting all the boss enemies easily. But recharge was too long. And I didn't have Nenji ready to go, which would have been another boss killer. Plus it makes you take gouto for a bonus objective too and he kind of sucks.
So I might try a mission again for the first time, with a full complement of 6 useful sentinels and get my S rank back.
Am I the only one playing?
I am as well, just very slowly (I usually only play games on weekends nowadays.)
I played a couple segments of Shu's story the other day, and one segment of Iori's. After eating some crepes ...
I had a really hard time catching the cat, and had to sit through repeating dialogue 5 or 6 times.
A few random thoughts:
Wow, that cyborg version of the student - I forget her name, I think it's the one who goes by Usami - was wild! And I loved how on the next path, Shu tried to touch Usami's stomach to make sure she was real. What a reaction, so valid and believable, and yet it would be so weird from Usami's point of view. I love stuff like that.
Also, between Juro, Shu, and then the non-binary character whose name I forget, are we already up to 3 characters that have multiple different names, or have aliases? I'm not that far into the game but that feels like a big number, and it's only likely to get wilder.
I am playing as well but really only have time on the weekends so you are very far ahead of me now. As I had mentioned in my previous posts, I dug incredibly deep into Yuki and Natsuno's stories first. Since they deadlocked, I started back at Juro and have been going around the circle.
Megumi (I think that is her name) I really do not like at this point. She is far too obsessed with Juro and gives off major stalker vibes. Maybe what she is doing is the right thing but with the information I have right now, it seems like she is being easily manipulated by a antagonistic force.
Gouto's prologue kind of throws a bunch of new information to light. He seems like he will be a cornerstone of everything, especially since he immediately locked at 80% completion for 9 other characters to continue past the prologue.
Ei was an interesting one. I forget what the last memory sequence was called for him, so won't post spoilers on it yet.
Currently working through Keitaro's Remembrance now. Based on other story beats, I feel like he will be the center of a lot of the inciting incident.
I played a couple segments of Shu's story the other day, and one segment of Iori's. After eating some crepes ...
Spoiler:I had a really hard time catching the cat, and had to sit through repeating dialogue 5 or 6 times.
Yeah that's what this post was about. Got stuck in that scene with Iori myself.
Small tip: R1 fast forwards through stuff you've already seen. So if you're trying to get to a certain point in dialogue before doing something new that can help.
That's a great tip! Wish I had known that, and my wife, who was getting very annoyed by the repetitive dialogue, also probably wishes I had known that.
Megumi (I think that is her name) I really do not like at this point. She is far too obsessed with Juro and gives off major stalker vibes. Maybe what she is doing is the right thing but with the information I have right now, it seems like she is being easily manipulated by a antagonistic force.
Gouto's prologue kind of throws a bunch of new information to light. He seems like he will be a cornerstone of everything, especially since he immediately locked at 80% completion for 9 other characters to continue past the prologue.
Yeah definitely with these two. Like come on Megumi this can't be good.
And Gouto must wrap everything together somehow.
I'm at 80% on like 9 of the 13 now. And I still can't tell you exactly WTF is happening. Problem is there are a few characters with memory issues. Then a few others from the future who seem to know more than others. And finally some you are not sure who is lying but someone definitely is. Because person A says this is the only way to save everyone and person B says something else is the only way. Haha.
It's hard to venture guesses because I can't trust everything I've seen. I don't think my original guess of
what year it really is
from a few days ago is even accurate after what I saw today.
This game is all about the journey.
I've played a few more segments: with Iori, I'm locked near the end of her route, and need 80% story with 8 protagonists to continue. With Natsuno, I've cleared the first couple of story paths past the prologue. I think I'm going to try to stick with one character at a time, for as long as I can, to try to understand as much of each character's storyline as possible (and learn the names). Jumping around seems like it'll only be more confusing. Any recommendations on where to go after I either finish Natsuno, or run into a wall?
A few thoughts:
- Seems like Iori is definitely supposed to be Chihiro, the nurse / badass in leather from the future. Maybe Chihiro is Iori's future self, or maybe one is a clone / replicant / cyborg version of the other. That makes sense of Ei's prologue where he woke up to find himself with no memories, a dead Chihiro, and Iori's student ID.
- Was interesting to see that when Iori went back to the science room and shifted into the future again, there were a bunch of dead bodies in that UFO base. Iori thought they were aliens but they looked a lot more like cyborg skeletons, like the one that Shu Amiiguchi / Tetsuya Ida saw of Usami.
- Is Ei Sekigahara perhaps an alternate version of Juro? In a dream scene, Iori sees Chihiro talking with an older character who's identified as "Juro," and they talk about having been in love once. But this older Juro definitely reminds me of Ei, both in looks and in voice. And, of course, Iori talks about love at first sight with Ei.
- Natsuno's trip to the past was enlightening. Okino seems to be trying to take over the sentinels, and has done something such that coming into contact with Keitaro Miura allows people to access or pilot them? Maybe I should follow Miura's plot after I'm done with Natsuno's, though I lean towards continuing with someone else who's more grounded in the present.
Also noticing that the story section awards meta-chips. So, I think I'm going to pursue as much of the story as I can before going back to the battles, so I can buy more upgrades -- including the score and chip multipliers. That seems consistent with what the spoiler-free guide recommended, too.
Yeah I had 45k chips or something before starting battles. Then I did 5 battles, because that battle 5 ends up being the lock on a few characters' story progression. And then did a bunch more stories until they were locked and had maybe 50k chips when I went to start the next 5 battles. And then 70k chips for the next 5.
I'm getting close to ready for the next 5 and think I am over 100k chips from all the stories now. Got almost everyone over 80%.
I've played a few more segments: with Iori, I'm locked near the end of her route, and need 80% story with 8 protagonists to continue. With Natsuno, I've cleared the first couple of story paths past the prologue. I think I'm going to try to stick with one character at a time, for as long as I can, to try to understand as much of each character's storyline as possible (and learn the names). Jumping around seems like it'll only be more confusing. Any recommendations on where to go after I either finish Natsuno, or run into a wall?
Hard to recommend without spoiling anything. I will say that some relationships seem more one-sided. X is in love with Y who is in love with Z, but not X. So don't stress too much early. Plus yeah you're going to see older versions of several characters. It's confusing at first but starting to make more sense as you get deeper.
Yeah, there's no wrong way to go through the stories. You're going to end up replaying all of them a lot anyway, to get through all of the possible story paths. Just go with your gut feel for what seems like it might be interesting in that moment.
How's that for a non-answer answer?
I love a good non-answer! Sounds like who to pick next will be a vibe check.
Finished my round-robin of Remembrances that are open before diving into combat hard (I did one battle, so had 3 mystery points, so got further into a few than with no battles possible). Total Remembrance progress is at 47% currently.
Keitaro Muira through "The House That Shouldn't Exist (37%):
Keitaro has a lot more of the segments that appear to be chat logs between people in 2188 about the building of a colony. Based on his story so far, I am thinking that there isn't actual time-travel going on, but the colony they are building is being shaped by what the inhabitants want. Keitaro is interested in WW2, so he designs a 1945 area, Tamamo thinks fondly of her grandfather's house that he grew up in 1985. Basing this off the fact that Keitaro remembers a big dent in a pillar in the Kurabe house that is not present in 1945. So instead of the gates shifting time, they warp between different parts of the colony? Not sure how the Deimos incident comes into that, but an interesting thought.
Ei Sekigahara Save & Recall (71%)
Oh boy! Is there a lot to unpack here. Killer androids from the future, a Tomi android that develops or procures the medicine that delays the nanomachines from detaching and causing memory loss. Plus we learn Okino completely lost his memories but was able to save them then upload them to his nanomachines to have them after losing himself. Plus he synthesized a personality based on his memories. There is a whole lot going on here.
More general thoughts on the overarching story, probably heavily influenced by Ryoko Shinonome's story I just got to 71%
According to Ryoko's memories, someone sabotaged the sentinel program in 2065, and it really did a number on Ryoko. The story seems to blame Ei, but based on what I have seen so far, I am not buying that. I forget which other story it was where they said not to trust Mr. Ida, but I am on that train. He was the one to identify where the signal was coming form in Ryoko's memory and is running the SIU in 1985, which is real shady. Also that Ryoko seems to react to Shu the way she did to Ida in 2065, I am thinking Shu is actually Ida and the Mr. Ida we see in 1985 is 426 in an android body. No real grounding for that, just my speculation.
Edit: I can unlock the next section of Juro's story (9 people at 30%), but think I will go do the first set of battles before diving further into story. Get a little bit of a change of pace.
Malkroth I think your guesses are exactly what I was guessing at that point. I think you can read all my spoilers through Oct 15 posts on this page. But probably not Oct 16 ones, since that's after I did 5 battles and unlocked some more Remembrances. 
Your last spoiler took me a bit longer to figure out. And actually one of the mystery files updated with it more factually when I thought the story was just hinting at it. So it's possible I missed a line of dialogue somewhere, or maybe the mystery files aren't perfect.
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