LogFAQs > #972042936

Oh thanks a lot for that info, it will save me a lot of bother!

We must accept our fate.

Ei Sekigahara
First up today I jump into the dimension-hopping amnesiac murderer's story. I ignore the incoming communication device and try the nearby phone box, but the phone number on the sheet we found has been disconnected by this point (if that's what it even signifies!). We run out of options and answer the call; the voice on the other end tells us told not to trust anyone. Ei wisely takes this to include the person speaking to us, and seeks out Iori. Iori seems to know Ei pretty well by this point so Ei having her ID was probably not just from them bumping into each other in her prologue. There's some background here that neither Ei nor myself have any knowledge of, but he bluffs Iori well enough to get her on side and something she says about Morimura triggers a memory in him. Everyone is going to wind up having memory loss at some point, aren't they?

The flashback here is very interesting. We appear to be in Ei's own dimension, and Morimura is here in all her squeaking leather glory. We're also introduced to a new (I think) power player, Tetsuya Ida. Hey, Amiguchi has been called 'Ida' before, I don't know what this means but no way it's a coincidence. This Ida has a shady voice, has done something with/to Ryoko in the past, and wants to oust Morimura from whatever position she holds here. I can't say he's without reason though, as Morimura states her intention to initiate Operation Aegis instead of resetting the loop in this world. This is the terminal overloading thing we do in combat, but triggering it renders the time machines useless. Hoo boy, the destruction timeline really is the final battle, huh! Beyond that, it is mentioned that time 'will cease to flow in this world' should Aegis begin, and that when it flows again chaos will reign. Not sure how that would specifically work but it's worrying, for sure. Especially because we're kicking ass in the final battle so far and have no need for the Aegis at all >_>

I imagine Ida must succeed in his efforts somehow, this can't be the final loop. Morimura raises an interesting moral note though- resetting 'the loop' may give us another chance to stop the invasion, but she implies the existing apocalyptic world will continue in its doomed state and this weighs on her conscience. I didn't think we'd be getting into the ethical implications of parallel timelines like this, so this is promising stuff! I wonder if this flashback is of the first invasion, or if some loops had already transpired by this point. Hmm.

Natsuno Minami
Ei's path locks here, so I see how our pants-challenged UFO enthusiast is doing with her ET/War of the Worlds adventure. In this path I realise that the flow charts aren't as complicated as I was previously thinking. There's no traveling back in time to make different decisions while retaining previously learned info, it's merely a case of the character being in the same location on a different day... I think. Natsuno's first day is pretty straightforward, running from the men in black and eventually discovering that Yuki is in league with them. This opens up Yuki's prologue, but I stick with Natsuno for now.

Later we head to the time gate shrine to help BJ look for his sentinel (#17), and we shift to 1945. Oh look, there's Gouto. There is indeed a sentinel here but it's #19, and I should probably start taking note of who pilots which machine and which ones are what generation. Okino is here, and his monologuing sounds mighty sinister with talk of taking over the sentinels and spreading data from Miura to 'the others'. Okino leaves us stuck in the past, and Natsuno is soon discovered by Miura. You know, it's pretty impressive how she's taking all of these ridiculous mindbending revelations completely in stride, I could learn a lot from her.

Keitaro Miura
Miura's burning background on the selection screen is too interesting not to choose, so I jump straight into his naive '40s military cadet story. ...or so I think. Instead his first scene completely throws me for a loop and I can just sit dumbfounded as the game laughs at my total ignorance. We're in 2187! Miura and Minami are here! Talking about creating self-replicating machines that *probably almost definitely won't* incur an invasion from aliens! Miura wishes he was around in WWII, and then sure enough we're back in the 1940's. What the heck! I later check the analysis section and see that this scene, the furthest in the future we've been, is in fact the very first scene chronologically of the whole game. Naturally.

I have no clue what that was about so let's move right along. Miura is here in 1944 and indicates no knowledge of the future we just saw, and he's pals with Hijiyama. We witness Hijiyama and 'Douji''s meet cute, and Juro's grandma Tamao wishes Miura luck. Miura will eventually live in her house, that's kinda neat. Tamao is also the person we saw talking to Gouto earlier, she'd been receiving meds to forget her 'nightmares' and wasn't happy about how it was going. Yeah everyone in this game is either a victim or perpetrator of some fucked up war experiments for sure.

In 1945 Miura meets Minami, and a brutal air raid razes the local town presumably in an attempt to destroy the munitions factory. Oh this game is going to have a lot to say about war and I feel it isn't going to hold back, I look forward to seeing how it handles the subject. Luckily for Keitaro, Tamao and his little sister Chihiro are safe. Wait, Chihiro? Miura... Morimura... yeah it's gotta be her! All paths lead back to the nurse.

As we take in the destruction around us, we see a kaiju stride across the background! Tamao and Keitaro assume it to be an American weapon- I like that Tamao suggests this first, of course that's would a civilian in this era would assume whenever they see a new incomprehensible atrocity set to destroy their life. I am more confused than ever though, when exactly do these aliens invade?! Do they hit multiple points in time at once, somehow? After considering what I know, my current theory is this: there have been around 4 apocalyptic events so far (going off of the 4 generations of sentinels), and after each failure the 'loop' is reset back to wherever the start is and we try again in a new timeline. In each timeline, the aliens... invade at a different point in time I guess? Or maybe the aliens can use the time machines and once they invade in the future they can teleport and invade at all points in time open to them (the time machines seem set to warp in 40 year intervals). Are they even aliens? They may well wind up being man-made, if not that then I imagine humans will at least be directly and avoidably responsible for their presence.

This ends Miura's prologue, and it's probably my favourite one so far. What a complete mindfuck of an opening scene, then turning into a 'horrors of war' story that will hopefully continue as we go. I can keep going with him but that's enough for today!

Current progress:
Juro Kurabe- 55%
Natsuno Minami- 37%
Ei Sekigahara- 28%
Iori Fuyusaka- prologue done
Takatoshi Hijiyama- prologue done
Megumi Yakushiji- prologue done
Shu Amiguchi- prologue done
Keitaro Miura- prologue done
Yuki Takamiya- prologue available