Greetings...excuse me while I dust off this blog. A lot has happened in the past year. The last time I wrote I was finishing up a contract job and spent a long time job searching and generally enjoying other hobbies. I got a new job back in April and it's been a fun challenge. Finally I feel settled in and I'm doing very well.
I've been playing plenty of games as well.
Today I'll write about the one that's freshest in my memory, Amnesia: Memories.
No...not the horror - survival game series Amnesia Dark Descent but a Visual Novel/Dating Sim...anime style. Although...it might fit with the Amnesia series in some ways. Allow me to introduce the game.
Summary
You play as a young woman in her first year of college (university) whose memories were displaced by a clumsy, young spirit named Orion. He and the heroine (named by the player) are on a quest to recover her memories so the spirit can separate. They have about one month to do this.
There are 4 "worlds" to enter which follow a different storyline/scenario. (Basically it picks which guy you were dating before losing the memories.) Characters are slightly different but the same in each world.
Virtues...
Well...it's one of those more "innocent" dating sims where there's no sex or excess of mammaries.
Lots of focus on various relationship types and how memory affects them. Interesting in that way.
Also Truth and Lies.
Lovely anime style art. Very fancy. Although that chest piercing really got distracting.
I suppose there's lots of good advice about trust and personal safety. It illustrates what NOT to do very well.
It made me do math problems. Thank God it was multiple choice.
Just lots of interesting themes if you care to read into them. (And after much after thought as I squeal "Notice Me Sempai" to my cat while playing.)
Vices
MATH PROBLEMS WAAAH!?
Promotion of co-habitation.
Very passive protagonist prone to getting walked all over and taken advantage of. Well, there is the "amnesia".
An amnesia plot. Meh.
Rewarding abusive behavior. This always hurts me to see.
Spoiler: There's always one serial killer type of character in these kinds of stories. (Or at least some of them that I've been playing.) This one has 3. ^^ So easy to die by murder. So easy.
Lots and lots of sexual harassment. ...so painful to watch...
Other Thoughts:
So many I want to go through right now I'll break it up into the various "chapters" I've played so far.
Just so you know there will be spoilers to the story. I do think the game is enjoyable and worth a read if you are of appropriate age. If anything, the artwork is gorgeous.
So let me give a rundown of my play-throughs and reactions. (There's a playing card theme.)
Clover: Kent
The first plunge I took was in clover world since I had heard about the game from a Let's Play video and didn't like the world she picked. Went into this with NO pre-conceived notions about the characters. So the man that you "date" is Kent. A graduate student. Go figure I'd pick the oldest and smartest. I was generally enjoying the storyline going with my instincts on choices. Ended up getting a "normal ending" (yay for branching path stories.). The story itself was one of those trying to humanize a super robot nerd. In this playthrough you were given 10 word problems to solve during the game. I remember thinking "THIS IS THE WORST" why would you make me do math in a romance novel? It's so cruel! I question my choices in life! I got most of them right.
After you get to know Kent better there's a stalker/psychopath who is CLEARLY the murderer. Because...he threatens to do so. Despite that one factor, it was fairly light-hearted.
I felt pretty good about the game after that playthrough. I decided to just work my way through Spade World like the let's play with the intent of breaking up with the character.
Spade: Ikki
In this world you date playboy idol Ikki. One of those narcissistic womanizer tropes that is god's gift to woman kind because he so pwetty! (Personally eye tattoos and barrettes aren't a big attraction factors for me.)
Ikki is always followed around by a gaggle of girls that call themselves a fanclub. They threaten to kill you if you date Ikki for more than 3 months and your time is almost up. It did start getting a little dark in those scenes.
In the end I did manage to break his heart as I had planned.
Of course I went back to play for the other endings but next I went to Diamond World.
Diamond: Toma
Wow...this one threw me for the biggest of loops. Toma is a childhood friend who is like an older brother (that you want to jump). He treats you like a little sister. The storyline is pretty drastic and scary in an uncomfortable way. There's harassment, online bullying, and threats to physical safety. It was tense. But the scariest of them all is Toma himself. Early on he seemed safe enough. LESSON LEARNED THOUGH. Holy balls...at one point he locks you in a large dog kennel for your safety. OH and mickeys your drink. In trying to keep you IN, he makes you want to LEAVE even more. I was like WTFballs is this nonsense. Some of the potential responses were even MORE disturbing.
I was like POKE HIM IN THE EYES! FIGHT! You can win.
I got two bad ends right way. One ended in physical death the other in mental/emotional death.
Can't even. Had to calm down after that storyline. I tried replaying it over and over to attempt a different ending. Nope. The normal ending was best because Shin saves you and Toma leaves for good. Probably the best ending in that situation to be honest.
Heart: Shin
The kid with the pec piercing? (Is that really a thing? I kept wanting to cover it up. Looked uncomfortable. What if it snagged on a shirt or someone gave you a titty-twister?) Anyway, Shin is another childhood friend, who is a bit cold, arrogant but super observant. Don't judge a book by its cover...I ended up really liking his tough love attitude. Ended up getting a "normal" ending which was nice.
Also solving a mysterious crime that happened to you! Who pushed you off a cliff and nearly got you killed? (Oddly enough since I played this after Toma's line...ALWAYS SUSPECT HIM!) So a bit of investigation and logic. Also it was refreshing that he figures out about your memory loss pretty much immediately and helps you out.
I immediately played it again to see the bad endings. Because I'm like that. Ended up dead...twice! Once by the creeper who shows up in every world. And once by guess who...our favorite villain...Toma! Double homicide. You'd never think it too. So scary. SO SCARY!
The good ending was very sweet and satisfying. Not going to spoil that so enjoy.
Side note: You're in a band apparently. awesome.
Diamond Revisited: Toma...can you be gud?
Followed a walkthrough to see the good ending. Not super good. End up dating him DESPITE THE DOG CAGE. Even if it was to protect you from harassment from Ikki's fanclub which was getting dangerous. Like seriously dangerous. It's terrible that they think you were dating Ikki thus the overboard harassment. Toma tries to hide it from you to the extreme. /sigh/ Not very happy with that one. It was weirdly satisfying in away but not.
So off to Spade again to try the "good" ending.
I was a little harsh about Ikki before. He has a celebrity complex which is why I feel bad for celebrities. It's hard to tell who likes you for you and all that. Even though he acts sleazy...gets drunk...flirts a lot...you get through it and he's not that bad. But there is that co-habitation thing and suggestions of future sexy times. ...buuuuuugggghhhh....gross. Went back to play the ending where I was killed by fangirls. Yes...sweet death.
Toma was not fudged up in this one though.
HA HA kidding. One of the many bad endings he straight up kills you to protect you from the fanclub or something. Honestly I was skipping dialog just to see these endings in one night. Will actually read what he does but waaah...
Other bad endings are mostly just death and break up.
I liked the normal ending for this one though. Character moves back in with her parents and Ikki visits on the weekends. Appropriate.
Clover World: What could be bad about Kent?
Wanted to save his good ending for very last so I went through the bad endings. Again, one ends in murder in a hospital...thrown from the roof by the creepy killer in every world. Then there was a break up version too where you're put in a hospital and just get worse.
Finally the good ending. The best good ending IMO. Get to go to London and we get a proposal. A GUY WHO GETS IT?? WHAAAA? Squeeeeeee!
Final World: Joker World??
So this world opens up after you've seen all four good endings. It's one of those characters who screws up the timeline by traveling to all the worlds and turns out to be the reason why you've lost memories in the first place. Original boyfriend made a deal with a god (don't mess with spirits man.) in an effort to save girlfriend. Ends up that reality realizes he an anomaly in every world he goes to and kills him somehow unless he can kill you first. (SO this is why you can get murdered SO FAST in the other games.)
All the death endings (there are 7) are absolutely brutal. Just brutal. I was just getting through the choices to see the screens at this point and didn't really read much. Didn't like his character design. (stupid cop hat just didn't look like it sat right on his head.) But dying over and over yet not dying is kinda the worst and probably would make anyone a rampaging, murdering psychopath.
This is a long post so I'll wrap this up now.
