Board 8 > Andy plays 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim

(+) Yeah! (+)

*progressive spoilers shall follow*

As chosen by B8, it is Sentinel time. All I know about this game going in is that it's a highly regarded anime VN with SRPG elements and multiple playable characters (I'll assume 13!). For those who haven't read my other playthrough topics, I like theorising about where things are going in this kind of game but I have a habit of getting things very very wrong!

I've only played for an hour or so but this is already a very strange game. I'm thrown headfirst into high school anime cliches blended with time travelling sci-fi kaiju. It's enticing, for sure! I hope I'm not supposed to be memorising everything already because there's a lot of info being thrown around, so many names to keep track of.

For reference I've just done Hijiyama's first VN section and it looks like I still have a lot of tutorial to go. I'm playing in English. The artstyle is cool, it's far too early to judge the combat, and I'm pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of a non-binary character already in Okino. I may need to start noting things down or making a flow chart to remember who is who and who knows what >_> I have a feeling this game may wind up making Zero Escape's narrative look simplistic.

Anyway, I'm excited for the ride. Let me know if there's anything I should know before going further, otherwise please don't spoil me on anything. I hope this topic will be enjoyable.

Tag!

It is by far the most complicated story Ive ever experienced

I ended up liking it a lot but spent hours in the glossary during my first third remembering who the hell everyone was.

Tag.

Just do it your own way. One of the things I appreciate about 13 Sentinels is that everyone experiences the game differently.

Great game. Definitely more in common with point and click adventures than VNs though.

This game was a fun experience.

Great game

I'm getting into the groove a bit now. After 7 prologues and combat tutorials the game suddenly opens up and lets us do whatever we want, which is a bit overwhelming as I'm still so in the dark about what is going on. Mainly I don't know what the deal with the destruction sections is, are they in a true 'final battle' timeline set after all the failures we've been going through in the remembrance sections? I guess I'll find out.

The other sections are more easily digestible, though it's a bit of a mindfuck when playable characters are obviously in a totally different spot in their timelines when we see them through someone else's eyes versus when we play as them. Ms Morimura and her chest are a constant factor in everyone's stories, and Renya Gouto appears to be all-knowing whenever we meet him. Hijiyama is from the past, Megumi and glasses girl are from the future, Sekigahara is from another dimension, and Kurabe isn't Kurabe at all. There's a lot of memory loss and time-hopping, dreams coming true and real world movie plots that are turning into reality, and a talking cat (whose contract I decline to sign, that voice is far too shady).

When I get free choice I start with Juro, as his story seems understandable enough and he's the default lead so I'm hoping it'll help me get to grips with things. Oh we're going fully into flow charts, huh. As if things weren't complicated enough! I like that he remembers information he learned when going back to a checkpoint, and I imagine (/hope) there's a plot reason for this too.

I exhaust all of Juro's options until the game locks me out- he is indeed Juro Izumi, with his personality wiped and a new one installed to save Izumi's life in the future or something. Ryoko Shinonome knows this and is in a similar boat it seems; Iori Fuyusaka also knows about him, the sentinels, and the apocalyptic future; and Megumi of course knows as she's gone back to the past and wants to recover Izumi's personality and keep him safe. There's no reference to Shiba's mind-wiping yet. Juro's scary future voice is great (is it the same VA as when he's Kurabe?), as he claims the cause of the apocalypse is the nanomachines inside the children before shooting them all. My fav moment in this whole section is Juro instinctively correcting Iori and claiming they were both transmitted together to the future, before catching himself. Very enticing!

I leave things here for now, and will try to gather my thoughts and understand the arching narrative a bit more. I'm hoping that repeating the characters' names here will help me learn them all. I'm tempted to go to Ei Sekigahara next as I'm already fully invested in his amnesiac murder story with the dead nurse (and cameo from BJ!), but maybe I'll stick with Iori or Amiguchi (or Ida, as he's been called twice) to stay closer to where I currently am.

A couple of notes- I really like the stylish e-manual and kinda wish it was a physical booklet! The overall presentation remains beautiful, and the voice actors are all doing a good job. And I picked 'normal' difficulty for combat but haven't gone back into those sections yet so I'll check what you all think is the best route to go, the tutorials were very simple. I know I can alter it at any time but there's no harm in asking!

You could ignore the destruction sections for a while if you wanted to, but eventually you'd be blocked from progressing the story until you completed a bunch of it. I'd suggest just periodically doing a bit of it as you feel like it.

Played this last year and it was a total blast! Great story and the gameplay was pretty fun too.

The gameplay seems really complex, but I played on Normal difficulty and had little trouble winning 95% of the battles.

Excited for this. It's kinda hard to tell where exactly you are, so I'll try to keep comments general.

Any theories on what's going on?

Yeah I'd recommend being specific about what happens when in this topic TC (even just a simple "I played Juro up to xx%")

Since you can do things in any order it can be confusing for people reading to talk about too.

Oh whoops I thought I'd been specific enough, I'll get more precise.

As of now I've done the 7 mandatory prologues (I assume that's the same seven for everyone), and then I just went through Juro's story until the game locked me out, I think I got him to 55%. Juro has recalled Megumi inviting herself to stay at his house, and Minami's friend being forced on him too. In one split he overhears Megumi and whatshisface (I want to say Gouto?) talking about Juro Izumi. He's spoken to Ryoko in the nurse's office, and he's talked to Amiguchi about his dreams. We've seen 'dream' Juro gunning down the kids, and when talking to Iori Juro remembers telling her about another dream while they were cleaning the science room. All these paths have locked off for now.

Bitto posted...

Any theories on what's going on?

...I don't know! A bunch of 'Deimos' kaiju invade Earth... sometime... for some reason (Izumi thinks nanomachines). It's stated that they resemble War of the Worlds aliens, but whether that has any meaning I don't know, there's a lot of 'movies coming true' stuff here that's unusual. Sometime in the future, the sentinels are created by that company I forgot to write down the name of, and somehow the machines can jump through time. I'm guessing there's a lot of time jumping going on and that there's a loop of some sort, where at the end of each failed timeline a machine with all relevant info gets sent back to the past so people can revise the specs of the machines and try to beat off the apocalypse in the next run. How all the characters connect to this I have no idea, beyond each of the playable characters being a suitable pilot for the sentinels (worth noting that there are clearly more than 13 sentinels going off of their IDs, that's somewhat interesting).

I love Juro's storyline. He was definitely one of my favorites.

I turn the difficulty up to intense and plan to do a quick battle before continuing on with the story, but then the game hits one of my weaknesses and tells me there's a chain bonus for doing consecutive fights. So of course I do 5 battles in a row and only stop because I get locked off >_> The last one, 1-5, introduces Terra Carriers. I go for all the bonuses for those juicy mystery points.

I'm getting into the battling now, though I'm surprised to already be 31% through the fights as the systems seem deep enough to last longer. Some attacks seem way more useful than others- I haven't learned the names of them yet to tell you which I mean but my fav atm is one of the anti-air ones, not the one that lays defensive mines but the one that just annihilates the whole screen. The screen itself can be a little cluttered and hard to decipher, and the artstyle isn't as pleasing to the eye as in the remembrance sections, but I'll never not enjoy feeding fodder enemies to my characters and watching those sweet exp rewards come in.

this is a really hard game to do a playthrough topic for I think

Consecutive fights is just "fights without using the 'reset brain overload' thing", you don't actually have to do them with no breaks.

Also there is never a reason to use that option anyway because you can replay stages so if its ever an issue you can just pop back into the first stage and do it with like 1-2 people.

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

Ive been wanting to play this, if someone notices it going on sale on PSN and could tag me I would appreciate you lol.

Ah, the 2187 reveal is so good. Just when you think you're getting a handle on the story it hits you with that.

Amusingly, because of how the game is structured, its entirely possible to get that scene very late because of just ignoring Miura's story and it either being a MUCH bigger mindscrew or much LESS of a mindscrew because you already had an idea about it.

13 Sentinels is really interesting because of that. Things that are major twists for one person can end up being nothing for another and vice versa, and the plot works just as well either way.

Ah, this format works really well. Still need to review the Remembrance section to really give any specific comments. Ill just say that I really enjoy the 3 stories you did today, so good choices.

As for the Destruction section, I never got the flying (Ver 4) to really work. All other versions feel more overpowered all around. I also like the giant fuck-you laser from the long-range Sentinels, which I believe is Ver 3.

Honestly I think my biggest problem with the game is that it is so convoluted I have a hard time a few years later remembering exactly what happened and how it all fits together.

Unlike something like umineko or the house in Fata Morgana which although very twisty resolve into a straightforward narrative, 13 sentinels...

Well it's crazy

Bitto posted...

As for the Destruction section, I never got the flying (Ver 4) to really work. All other versions feel more overpowered all around. I also like the giant fuck-you laser from the long-range Sentinels, which I believe is Ver 3.

4th Gens were my favorite, personally. Interceptors everywhere brrrr

What I really liked about the game was getting really invested in one character and wanting to know more but then something happens or is revealed about another character and I want to go do that character's sections. And just when I think I want to finish one character's section, I suddenly want to know more about this other character! It's very fun lol

tcaz2 posted...

4th Gens were my favorite, personally. Interceptors everywhere brrrr

Those and 2nd gen(?) towers were my go-tos

I honestly don't remember which ones I liked best. I just used whichever ones gave me the battle bonuses.

I'm pretty sure Natsuno got about 20 MVP awards in my destruction run

tcaz2 posted...

Ah, the 2187 reveal is so good. Just when you think you're getting a handle on the story it hits you with that.

Yes, exactly this!

13 Sentinels is really interesting because of that. Things that are major twists for one person can end up being nothing for another and vice versa, and the plot works just as well either way.

A lot of games attempt this kind of thing, it'll be very impressive if this game pulls it off. I think Zero Escape generally manages it well but I may just have happened to go through those games in the 'right' way.

Gen 3 are my fav sentinels at this point, long range attacks have too many benefits and that death beam wrecks everything.

Hemborger

Keitaro Miura
We're in 1985 now, and it's cool watching Keitaro slowly realise where he is. I like that this chapter starts off like this with quiet character beats, I feel for the poor guy. The atomic bombs realisation still hits hard. After an encounter with Okata and Amiguchi, we meet up with Natsuno and she helps us get settled by throwing us on an unsuspecting Juro, triggering a flashback with Tamao and Chihiro. The 1985 version of this house doesn't bear the scars it should (also it's not ashes), so it seems this is a different dimension.

Suddenly, it's time for some more seismic whatthefuckery as we are in THE FUTURE again. It's 2188 and Miura talks to Professor Tamao, who is Professor Morimura's mentor and an expert in the field of AI. Oh no. Please tune in to this topic over the next two weeks, where I will theorise about each and every character in this game being a robot and somehow miss the one character who actually is.

Future Miura discusses 'producing' future Tamao's parents' house, which leads me to my new theory (that I think the game is pointing me towards): there is no time travelling or dimension hopping at all. In the 2180s, future Miura and friends create several separate recreations of Earth (likely just this one part of Japan), based on the world as it was in time periods 40 years apart. I recall F!Miura mentioning 'sectors' in his prologue, and I noted down BJ mentioning sectors in Natsuno's prologue- he called 2065 Sector 2, and 1945 Sector 5. Presumably 1985 and 2025 are two more sectors, and I guess the other one is likely 2105 as Natsuno says 1945 is the furthest back they can 'shift'. Of course, this theory has two major flaws. First, how in the world would they pull this off, and more importantly, why the fuck would they do this. How could these fake worlds help ward off the alien invasion? Why would everyone involved in the creation of this have their own memories wiped upon entering these artificial worlds/simulation? Morimura seemed distraught at the idea of one of the dimensions falling to the aliens, why would she be so worried if it's all fake? This theory clearly needs a lot of refining, but I think there's something there. Maybe.

Back in the 80s, Miura finds child Chihiro but is shooed away by, of course, Gouto. I should be keeping tally of who appears in shady situations more between Gouto and Morimura. I guess they'd both get a point here! I'm a big fan of Keitaro's 'fish out of temporal water' scenes, both the serious sad ones and the ones where he delights in the joys of hemborger meat. His crush on Natsuno is sweet, too, it's all good characterisation and reminds me these people are mostly all children caught up in an incomprehensible sci fi mess.

But we're not done with the bombshells yet. BJ, becoming more interesting by the second, shows Miura and Minami one of these future logs we've been seeing between chapters! So this isn't a framing device being saved for later revelations. In this one, we learn Professor Yuki Takamiya is F!Natsuno's mother. Is anyone not a professor in the future? She mentions Natsuno and Miura being in sector 4 already, and that she herself will meet them in sector 3. Maybe the sectors are just dimensions and my theory is way off.

In 1945, Keitaro finds a dying Tamao and Gouto kidnaps Chihiro. I know he'll have his reasons and he's probably not a bad guy, but does Gouto have to be such a cryptic asshole all the time >_> However real or fake this all winds up being, he's causing severe distress to those around him instead of just being honest about whatever is going on. Tamao does not in fact die, according to BJ (and the mystery logs) she's been shifted by Universal Control. That's one point for 'this is all taking place in the future'.

Zipping back to 1985, Keitaro hands his little sister her stuffed bunny, and she responds kindly before revealing she has the full memories of adult Morimura and isn't his sister at all, although she acknowledges some of their life here has implanted itself into her personality. Poor Keitaro is left in the dark once again as another connection he has in this world is severed. Cut the guy some slack, game! I don't know why Morimura was in the body of a child in the 40s disguised as Miura's sister, perhaps to protect her from her assassin Ei, but as always she and Gouto bugger off instead of explaining things clearly. Our cadet remembers meeting Ei in 1944, where Sekigahara is assumed to be a spy and claims that F!Miura's consciousness is in the body of a drone robot. BJ? Or is there another? And if the person we're playing isn't the true Miura, then who is he? An AI? There, one guess down. Maybe everybody is a robot and they all have very very faulty memory banks.

That's where I leave things today. Many of these scenes felt like they could be major late game reveals, so it's cool to see them this early on. I'm so very invested in this story of Miura and Minami, it has set a high bar that I hope the other storylines can match. Miura is locked off for now and I'm tempted to go to Gouto next to try and stay within this storyline's orbit, but we'll see.

Current progress:
Keitaro Miura- 75%
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
Yuki Takamiya- prologue available
Renya Gouto- prologue available

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/0/1/AAPhobAAEQrl.jpg

Natsuno and Miura are very high up on my list of characters as well.

Destruction
First up today I do some fighting, and clear the rest of Area 1. I'm still curious what the deal is with this final battle, the characters have surely gone through all their stories before getting here but there's a lot of stuff they still don't know in the pre-battle cutscenes.

There's some actual plot around the battles today, starting with baby Chihiro showing up and shifting 1.2 million people from Sector 4 to Sector 3, 2025. Later Okino says Gouto ran the numbers on the kaiju that were 'produced', that doesn't sound like terminology that'd be used for aliens! This all seems reasonably computer-adjacent for the time being. There's one new kaiju that the experts don't know about, but Natsuno says it was 'in the data for interstellar development', another sign that these things were created by humans I think. Finally, after the last wave of area 1 we meet a new face, Miyuki Inaba. I imagine this idol will be the voice that was speaking to Amiguchi in his prologue, but for now she talks about fixing the mainframe and Universal Control processing her commands.

These are all fun lore tidbits but alone they're not enough to build conclusions from, and as we're not allowed to start Area 2 it's time to head back to the main story.

Renya Gouto
Unlike the rest, Gouto's story doesn't begin with him blissfully ignorant of what's going on. Despite literally playing as him, he somehow manages to be as cryptic as ever and I don't really learn much about who he is. An early scene features the 4 most secretive characters in the game- Gouto, Morimura, Ida, and Okino- in a future lab talking about future stuff. It's as if we're peeking behind the curtain at a lategame scene we somehow acquired access to early on, but without necessary context the amount of new info we can learn is limited.

We discover that by 2105 all 1.2 billion factories on Earth are automated, producing kaiju by themselves. Well, that's where they come from then. More distressingly, we see some 2188 reports describing people downloading their memories onto others through 'innerlocitors', effectively stealing their minds. Wow, that's fucked up. And unfortunately adds another layer of doubt as to the level of sincerity of literally anyone in this game.

My hope of learning more about Miura's story does slightly come to pass, as we get a more detailed explanation for child Chihiro: Ms Morimura herself was inspired by the future reports and downloads her memories into a clone in an attempt to make herself 'compatible' again. This term comes up a lot here, compatibility with the sentinels/mainframe/whatever must be pretty important. But the experiment doesn't work so Morimura seals her memories away and tosses the infant to WWII Japan to live her own life. How... thoughtful? You could've picked a less distressing time for her to grow up in, Chihiro! The 'true' Chihiro is now in this kid's body after Gouto woke her up, and someone else has taken over the adult form to try and is trying to destroy her project somehow. '426' is a suspect here, I'm noting that number down for whenever it comes up again.

Lastly, Renya enters a UFO (!) and watches some more logs, this time of Chihiro describing Operation Aegis again and talking about the sentinels being infected and something about Sector 0. The only thing noteworthy to Gouto in that log is apparently her mention of a 'he' that she wants to save. And then there's another log revealing that in the future Renya becomes an executive figure at Shikishima and orders the assassination of Morimura. You know what? Sure, I'll roll with it. There's too many unknown variables for me to know what to make of all this.

How do I know less about Gouto than I did before I started his story? Dude is secrets all the way down. I laugh out loud seeing that he's now locked off until we reach 80% with all(?) 12 of the other characters. Of course!

Yuki Takamiya
We follow up that mess with the comparatively straightforward story of a teenage Yuki being recruited into a shady organisation to spy on Sakura High. Ryoko is also here, I always forget she exists. Yuki quite understandably doesn't give a damn about any of the greater shenanigans going on, instead only caring about her childhood friend that she still has strong feelings towards. A girl named Erika Aiba bizarrely inserts herself as Yuki's sidekick against Yuki's will, and then we get to interviewing students. This section isn't great gameplaywise, there's a lot of meandering back and forth and initially it's unclear why we're doing this as I assume Natsuno is at this point away in 1945. But in a way it's refreshing to be in a lower stakes scenario where it's easy to understand what is actually happening.

After a lot of bouncing around, sweet innocent Miwako (please don't let anything bad happen to her, game) helps us realise there are two Tomis running around, and some dusty girl who blew up a toilet or something. I leave it here for today but will continue on Yuki's storyline next time, I can't really judge it yet as I don't know what the hook will be. I like Yuki as a character though, it's nice to have an abrasive personality pushing against the pretensions of some of the others.

Current progress:
Keitaro Miura- 75%
Juro Kurabe- 55%
Natsuno Minami- 37%
Ei Sekigahara- 28%
Yuki Takamiya- 28%
Iori Fuyusaka- prologue done
Takatoshi Hijiyama- prologue done
Megumi Yakushiji- prologue done
Shu Amiguchi- prologue done
Renya Gouto- prologue done
Tomi Kisaragi- prologue available

What a game, I love it

andylt posted...

I laugh out loud seeing that he's now locked off until we reach 80% with all(?) 12 of the other characters. Of course!

This was hilarious and made me want to get there asap lol

We have no need for a future.

Yuki Takamiya
Picking up where we left off, Yuki conveniently gets a brand new hint in the form of Natsuno's notebook, but it doesn't prove to be of much use. At the front gate we meet Shinonome, which is followed by a fascinating and presumably vital flashback. In it, there's a log of future Ryoko bemoaning the dishonesty of the remnants of humanity (particularly Ida), and she vows to ruin 'Project Ark' and create an endless loop of destruction of all sectors, finishing off humanity for good to save the world. Did Ryoko cause the apocalypse??! Current Ryoko finds this very difficult to accept, and has a pretty understandable breakdown over it.

Fake Morimura (I assume) gives her medicine to clear her mind, and offers some to Yuki too which she of course declines. I'm tempted to start Ryoko's prologue right here because that is one hell of a bombshell if she's really the one responsible for all this, but I stick with Yuki for now. After a scuffle with Wajima's gang we meet friendly detective Onishi, and he and Yuki swap stories. She seems to trust this cop well enough despite her usual insistence! We're sent on a train to see what Shikishima is hiding, and on the way find out that Erika Aiba is not who she says she is. Woo! I figured she wouldn't be a pointless side character. At the destination Takamiya and a re-brainwashed Shinonome both react to Sentinel #14's presence, and The Ominous Duo show up to do their usual thing. Gouto wonders 'how many times did he come into contact with her', but I don't know who he's referring to in either instance. That's par for the course with him.

This story is locked off for now. I didn't go to Tokisaka Shrine but it's filled in on the flow chart anyway as 'A Fruitless Effort', so I guess I didn't miss much!

Natsuno Minami
Natsuno's story has opened up again so of course I head straight back in to 1985. Her giving herself a pep talk out loud is adorable and hilarious, I really like this girl. I love that she takes everything deathly seriously but also goes with the flow on every earth-shattering new revelation. Even her wacky theories don't seem far off the truth, once you remove the alien part of her deductions that is. She's barely fazed by the knowledge of an android assassin that looks like her friend!

Escaping from Tomi into the girls' bathroom, we hide in a stall with BJ. Now it is time for an epic killer android fight between Tomibot and Erikabot... slightly off screen. I'm not usually one for insisting on action scenes but that's such a tease, game! The conversation between the bots is interesting, Erika is only attacking Tomi for the atrocities she apparently caused, and Tomi seems to be rebelling against the whole system somehow. I think Tomi is the one referred to as 426 here, which would track. Tomibot wins the fight and swaps bodies with Erikabot, who Natsuno immediately identifies as Tamao Kurabe. ...I have no excuse for not noticing the resemblance between Tamao and Erika earlier. Maybe I have a case of prosopagnosia >_>

Tamaobot refers to BJ as Miura (that answers that earlier question), and claims Natsuno is the new leader of the kaiju (???). It's time for Natsuno to receive her obligatory memory loss plot point now, as 426 injects her with a needle before starting her new career as Erika Aiba. The whole bathroom confrontation scene is terrific, I might rewatch it to see if I missed anything.

I enjoy how Natsuno's fellow track member reacts to her running off to save the world from aliens, everyone is well aware of her eccentricities. Last up today, we go to 2065/Sector 2, and Natsuno finds a broken robot that thankfully isn't BJ. She finally realises BJ isn't an alien, and is DEVASTATED he's merely an intelligent robot. Top 10 saddest moments in anime :(

Here BJ finally gives us confirmation (well, speculation) on something I'd been wondering about for some time now: this place is not Earth. Though instead of being some computer simulation as I thought, his current theory is that we're on another planet. We have another 2188 report between Natsuno and Shikishima executive Ogata, and learn of the plan to send 6 million humans' DNA on a ship to a planet 12 light years away to restart humanity. I make a joking comment in my head about Natsuno being the real alien, but before long BJ repeats my thoughts out loud! Is this the greatest day in Natsuno's life?! We don't get to see her reaction, sadly, and she's locked off for now. She is absolutely my favourite character at this point.

Well, that was some series of events. Some great scenes today! We now have every prologue opened up and I have no idea where I'll go next. Focusing on a handful of characters has helped me better keep track of what's going on I think, but I do feel bad for neglecting some of the others for so long. Yuki is open again so I may head there, but so is Ei, and Ryoko is mighty tempting.

Current progress:
Keitaro Miura- 75%
Natsuno Minami- 62%
Yuki Takamiya- 57%
Juro Kurabe- 55%
Ei Sekigahara- 28%
Iori Fuyusaka- prologue done
Takatoshi Hijiyama- prologue done
Megumi Yakushiji- prologue done
Shu Amiguchi- prologue done
Renya Gouto- prologue done
Tomi Kisaragi- prologue available
Ryoko Shinonome- prologue available
Nenji Ogata- prologue available

Natsuno is great. Probably in my top 3 characters for the game.

Natsuno was my favorite as well

Leonhart4 posted...

Natsuno is great. Probably in my top 3 characters for the game.

Without thinking too deeply into it I'd have to agree yeah.

I have no idea who's popular or who's not in the fanbase at large (I'm not asking), but I'm glad Natsuno is well-liked by everyone here!

I've never even looked to see who the most popular characters in the game are, so I couldn't tell you anyway!

Yuki Takamiya
Yuki meets Ei in the 'abandoned' north building that everybody goes to all the time. Ei knows her somehow, but BJ!Miura does not. Nat-chan has been left behind in the ruins of 2025, I'm sure we'll find out how soon enough. Then we're back in the '80s to focus on the android formerly known as Tomi Kisaragi, currently Erika Aiba AKA Tamao Kurabe AKA 426. ...AKA Juro Izumi! 426's identity is finally revealed thanks to Morimura. Juro Kurabe should already be around at this point in time (though I don't believe we've ever met him as Yuki), so what does this mean? If Izumi's personality was reconstructed into Kurabe, who is the 426 that Morimura shoots here on Sumire bridge (and apparently not for the first time)? Is he an Izumi from a past cycle, someone else who thinks he's Izumi, or is Kurabe an elaborate construction who is actually entirely separate? If Izumi is an AI, is everybody here an AI or is he cloned from the regular Izumi who is now Kurabe? I've no idea, but I am now eager to get back to Juro's storyline.

Whoever he is, this Izumi has a strong connection to Morimura and we witness an argument that is well beyond us. Juro claims Morimura is merely trying to save her own ass by derailing 'the interstellar project', and she claims she's doing it for them both (I guess Izumi is the 'he' referred to earlier), particularly for the Juro before he awoke here... Interesting. They both seem to accept that 15 other people will be 'denied their own future', my guess from the description here is that they'll be trapped in these sectors or this loop if Morimura's plan succeeds. 15 is an interesting number, I assume the 13 playables are among them but who are the other two? Tamao perhaps? Okino? And maybe Juro Kurabe isn't part of that number...

Izumibot jumps off the bridge and everyone exits to do some plot stuff, leaving Yuki to ponder what just happened. This pretty much encapsulates what this storyline has been like. I like Yuki, and there's been some fun plot development here, but it's as if she's on the periphery of her own story. She doesn't seem crucial to anything happening and there's not one single throughline connecting all of these scenes, she just happens to be around to witness other people having snippets of their own stories. Her only real drive has been to locate Natsuno, and that's not exactly led anywhere. It's a shame, as I do like her character. We're not done with her yet, so maybe she will get more to do, but for now we're locked off.

Ryoko Shinonome
Ryoko is from 2064, the same as Ei it turns out. She has a crush on substitute teacher Ida that it's unclear if he reciprocates- he is all business and focused on the mission but he's not exactly disavowing her of her romantic notions. Hanging over this whole story is the knowledge that 2188 Ryoko feels utterly betrayed by Ida, having been used by him from the start, so it's impossible not to go into this viewing him as a likely villain.

Ryoko and Ei eagerly sign up as child soldiers, and we get to witness the Sentinel Infection mentioned a while ago from the POVs of Morimura, Gouto, and Ida. Ei's sentinel seems to transmit an infection to all the other sentinels, and only 5 of them manage to make it out (12, 13, 14, 16, 19). Ida heroically sacrifices himself (hmm...), and in the wreckage of 2025 Ryoko attempts to avenge him by killing Sekigahara aka Prisoner 426. She fails, and Ei claims he tried to save her but couldn't.

After the prologue we're back in 1985 with a very unwell Ryoko at the whims of the Devious Duo. The 'repeating day' mechanic that has been used in most storylines works really well here. With Ryoko's fragile mental state and overpowering memory loss (even by the standards of 13 Sentinels characters), the repetition here feels sinister and worrisome, the background tone of this section isn't far off psychological horror. The blinking screen is effective too, missable at first (I did wonder if it was my eyes or the TV the first few times >_>) but getting worse and worse until you have no choice but to take the pills that you know are probably bad news for Ryoko. We're interviewing students much like Yuki did, but their reactions to Ryoko make no sense to her and only increase the tension. Tomi straight up tells her to run away (and we do thanks to some wonderful distraction work from Miwako!).

We take a few trips around this nightmare, first seeing Megumi get trained to replace Ryoko as pilot of #14 (she blames Juro's death on her and taunts her for it), and then reading medical records showing that her personality is separating and she is beginning to 'disappear' like Izumi did in Kurabe's body. Is Morimura careless, or does she simply not give a damn about her students/experiments finding their medical records openly on her desk lol. In the case of Ryoko, I suppose she's not the slightest bit concerned as she'll forget everything in a moment anyway. If I have my timelines right (a big if), I believe Gouto is suspicious of this Morimura at this point so she may be 426 herself.

One day we confront Ei in the science room repeating the exact same dialogue from the prologue, and then jump to 2025 where we once again repeat the conversation almost verbatim. Man, poor Ryoko, whatever happened to her has her well and truly fucked up. Ei claims not to be 426, and calls her big sister (not sure if that's meant to be literal or some kind of honorific like Senpai). Even after all that, we wake again in the nurse's bed to repeat the same dialogue as ever. Seriously, poor Ryoko.

She later remembers being rescued by Ida in this timeline despite him apparently dying, and she realises that Shu Amiguchi reminds her very strongly of the man. It is here that I remember Amiguchi being called 'Ida' waaaay back when, and I'm suddenly tempted to try his storyline next. We're locked out of Ryoko for now.

Current progress:
Yuki Takamiya- 85%
Keitaro Miura- 75%
Ryoko Shinonome- 75%
Natsuno Minami- 62%
Juro Kurabe- 55%
Ei Sekigahara- 28%
Iori Fuyusaka- prologue done
Takatoshi Hijiyama- prologue done
Megumi Yakushiji- prologue done
Shu Amiguchi- prologue done
Renya Gouto- prologue done
Tomi Kisaragi- prologue available
Nenji Ogata- prologue available

To be clear since its not spelled out in game, Ei and Ryoko's relationship are the "you're like a big sister to me" thing. They're not actually related.

Thank you, I wasn't sure which way to read that!

Shu Amiguchi
I decide to follow on from Ryoko. Much like Juro and Iori, Shu keeps reliving 'dreams' of the future, but unlike the others he also has idol Miyuki Inaba giving him cryptic messages through the TV every now and then. The first dream sends us to post-apocalyptic 2025, where Shu and singer Tomi have a clear connection and we wonder about some things- why the kaiju are sitting around waiting after winning the war easily, and why we haven't been vanished like the rest of the population. It turns out the Amiguchi in these dreams is actually Tetsuya Ida, though personally I can't see the similarity.

One uncomfortable grope of Kisaragi later, our next dream sees Ida in 2100 transferring the memories and mind of a now dead Tomi from sector 0 into an android body so he can reunite with his love once more. But it's the dream after this that is very important. Ida has been similarly transferring Izumi into a faceless android simply to get help with tech issues, then killing him once he's done. Again and again. That's pretty horrific! AI Tomi is not very pleased by the things Juro says here about Ida's experiment in trying to restore her, and having backups ready in case she fails. Juro states that Ida sees humans as 'replaceable hardware', and manages to escape his confinement thanks to a past AI Izumi installing an escape route for him. Well, that explains the origins of Tomibot! The 426 running around in the present is this one created from the memories in sector 0, and our Juro Kurabe is presumably the 'original' (if anyone is truly original here).

Though this does make me curious about something else. Until now, I'd assumed the flashbacks of Ida and Morimura took place a long time ago, but now we've seen 426 enter Tomi's android body I wonder how much time could really have passed between this lab flashback and the bathroom fight. She is an android and has a bandage on her leg so it could be a while, but still... Ida also mentions building a body for AI Tamao, which is probably the one we see later on as well. There's also the question of the regular schoolgirl Tomi herself- who is she? Did Ida succeed in creating another backup of his beloved, or is this Tomi something else? A question her story will answer, I imagine.

Back in the 'real' world, we relive a scene of Juro and Shu hanging out but this time from Shu's perspective, with the noticeable absence of Juro's best friend. Based on what Inaba says later, I now figure that she is taking on the form of Kyuta Shiba to guide Juro where she wants him to go. I kinda wanna replay Juro's sections with this theory in mind! Inaba confirms that both Juro and Shu are playing out the past without realising- Shu is Ida, Juro is Izumi, and I will assume that Iori is playing the role of Morimura. Inaba's goal involves saving humanity via Project Ark and her power is limited as she's being blocked by Universal Control, though I'm not sure how all that she's doing with these kids is going to help.

Probably my favourite scene in this section is of Shu and Yuki going on a 'date', only to discover that they both share eerily similar childhood memories. Then we hit the edge of the world. The highway gives way to an infinite Outer Wall, a bombshell realisation that the world we inhabit is merely 30km in diameter. Some pieces of the puzzle are coming together! I was wrong about all of this being a computer simulation, but perhaps right about these sectors being completely distinct from 'real' history. I think it's fair to assume now that all of this is taking place post 2188, and the five 'sectors' are these 30km domes. I might even say it's very likely now that we are not time traveling at all, but simply shifting between the different domes when we enter a different era. Though of course the reasoning for all of these time periods, how they could help humanity survive extinction, why they're 40 years apart, and how it all connects to Deimos and how the loops work is still unknown. Still, this enclosure reveal is a pretty big moment.

In the last segment of the day, Shu meets Ogata on the rooftop and we get a hint of Ogata's story, before Megumi shoots Amiguchi and unexpectedly triggers his sentinel to appear. Tetsuya Ida is watching this unfold, and weirdly makes a mention of telling the US military not to interfere with what's going on. Surely he knows that we're in a dome and there is no US! Maybe he's just playing along. Shu flies above the bubble and sees again that we are in space, and Inaba tells us that Sentinel #20 was never meant to be operated and that invaders have entered the sector. Does she mean Ida? Or maybe Fluffy, as the cat is likely the reason Megumi shot Shu. Just how many players are there in this game? Are we all clones of Morimura, Ida, and Juro >_>

Shu comes back down to 'Earth', and is threatened by Ida (who is interestingly surprised to see him as the pilot) into working with him. Amiguchi's story locks here for now, and I'm leaning towards Iori next to keep the future/past dreams info coming. Or maybe Tomi, to get more of a handle on the Ida situation.

Current progress:
Yuki Takamiya- 85%
Shu Amiguchi- 85%
Keitaro Miura- 75%
Ryoko Shinonome- 75%
Natsuno Minami- 62%
Juro Kurabe- 55%
Ei Sekigahara- 28%
Iori Fuyusaka- prologue done
Takatoshi Hijiyama- prologue done
Megumi Yakushiji- prologue done
Renya Gouto- prologue done
Tomi Kisaragi- prologue available
Nenji Ogata- prologue available

Shu's story is one of my favorites as well. Also I think its been mentioned already, but to clarify on why Shu doesn't look much like older Ida, Shu used to look like a stereotypical nerd with glasses and stuff but put a lot of effort into changing his appearance for highschool. Presumably, Ida did the same thing but stopped at some point and went back to looking like a nerd.

I still find it odd that labcoat Ida looks like Shu with glasses, but suited he looks entirely different!

We just need to reset things. It'll all be better that way...

Destruction
I've now made my way through the second area. Armour piercing skills are paramount here, and I'm curious what boosts the enemies will get in area 3... I probably rely on the melee sentinels the most at this point. Ogata's wide-range Demolition Blade is too good! I like that within the classes each character has their own niche to make them stand out. The flight supports are the ones I've found the least use for, I use Yuki and Shu more than Megumi and Gouto.

There's some pieces of relevant plot info here but several of the pre and post-battle scenes are empty talk about the new enemies. There's also one odd skit of Iori getting a crush on Yuki lol. The final wave of Area 2 has impressive presentation, with Miyuki Inaba singing us on before her ship drifts out of range. I didn't expect the music to actually stop mid-battle, that was a downer. I wonder how the dialogue changes if you speed through that battle before she leaves us behind? Or maybe it's scripted so she stops singing before you end.

Shu Amiguchi
I'm itching to get back to story content, and I've unlocked Shu's last segment so go straight in with him. Turns out Miyuki Inaba is actually the AI Tomi whose body was stolen by AI Izumi, I had not figured that one out. Ida is aware of her now and wants to erase her and reset Project Ark again, and women being in trouble is all Shu needs as motivation to help out. Ryoko decides to join us after a brief mix-up, and we're soon at the Outer Wall. I like Shu commenting about Ryoko 'not finding out about that part' regarding the spaceship lol, he's pretty self aware that we're all only getting tiny pieces of the puzzle.

We shift into Sector 3 and soon find Ida and Yuki. What follows is a long confrontation where Ida's motives are laid out: he wants to reset the world for his love, Tomi (I like Ryoko's non-verbal reaction to that). As heartless as he can be, even Ida does not want to erase AI Tomi. Instead he silences her via the sentinels, which I guess connect to her in space? We learn Shu and Ida share identical genetic code, and I wonder why Shu exists. Ida placed him into Amiguchi custody himself, but did he create the clone? Maybe just so he'd have continued access to 'compatibility' through Shu's ID, or maybe it was Morimura or the system itself. At one point Ida mentions that 'she' is still transplanting memories into Shu, and the archives later tell me the she being referred to is Morimura. In any case, it's interesting how identical genetics can produce two completely disparate personalities. Did all the kids get to grow up without any interference, or did Morimura/Gouto/Ida/Inaba/Okino/whoever else interfere to nudge them where they wanted them to go, I wonder.

Inaba tries to warn Ida against hitting the reset button. He ignores her, but Ryoko winds up forcibly shifting the two of them and Yuki somewhere. Shu is left behind with the surprisingly friendly men in black, stumbling around until Natsuno (and BJ) unexpectedly shows up. End of story! Not really much in the way of resolution for Shu, but then these aren't self contained arcs and I have to expect more will come afterwards. Lots of fun important information in this story with Ida and Inaba. Ida sure seems like the main antagonist at this point!

Ryoko Shinonome
I'm tempted to head to Natsuno, but decide on Ryoko in the hopes that we'll see a continuation of the events of Shu's story here. The poor girl isn't doing very well, and neither is my head trying to figure out the order of things and who knows what when with her. We meet Yuki in the cafeteria and- I swear I chose this path out of coincidence- our very next scene shows the result of Ryoko's shift earlier! Aw yeah. It sure is climactic, as Ryoko seemingly shoots her love dead point blank. ...RIP big bad Ida? He's escaped death before but it would be cool if his end is here, at the hands of one he hurt so much and disregarded entirely. It's sad that the reason she kills him is his love of Tomi, and she doesn't care about him using her the whole time. We've gotta teach you some self-respect, Ryoko!

Of course, amnesiac Ryoko doesn't take well to this memory. After some prodding she reluctantly recalls another one, this time further back in 2104. She seems perfectly cognisant in all these flashbacks, I wonder when exactly the pills and memory deterioration started. I thought these were all post-infection, but I could have my timeline wrong. Anyway, Ryoko fends off a couple of skinless androids (intriguing!) and discovers that Ida's logs from the past 3 years have been deleted. Potentially by Ida himself, or Morimura or Gouto? We watch the last log, and as luck would have it this is a perfect companion piece to Amiguchi's story.

Tetsuya and AI Tomi have a conversation where we learn that Hijiyama, as well as Miura, has a consciousness without a human body. Tomi rejects Ida's plan and has the audacity to think for herself. We then watch Ida come up with his plan in real time, and hearing it justified in his own words just enforces how sick it is. Shu was right to call him out on it, this is not some tragic love story but merely an egomaniac wanting to erase thousands/millions of lives so he can shape the object of his affection to be more agreeable.

The last path for Ryoko takes an unexpected turn. Instead of a culmination of all the secrets and conspiracies she's been exposed to and lied about, the truth is much more mundane and sad. She herself administered the DD-426 infection out of ignorance and adoration of Ida. There's been no plot to erase her by Gouto and Morimura, her nanomachines are simply disconnecting from her real memories and the duo hve been trying without success to find a way to slow them down as the pills become less and less effective. Ryoko collapses and eventually her nanomachines separate entirely, leaving her without any memories at all.

This is... super depressing!! For the obvious reason- Ryoko no longer exists in a meaningful way, she's a mindless weapon whose only purpose now is to fight someone else's war. But also, and this might be worse, because she's been used as no more than a tool her entire life, and her shell carries on the same way even after she's not around anymore. Morimura and Gouto may not have been plotting some sinister plan for her, but the reason they did what they did was to try and get the password out of her, not out of any real concern for her wellbeing. Then there's Ida, obviously, and the rest of her life is a non-linear blur. As far as I can see it, the only person who ever cared about Ryoko as a human being was Ei, and she didn't even seem to know that.

Ryoko's last scene is her, alone, entering her sentinel because that's all she knows to do. I've gotta hope there's something better around the corner for her, because this is too sad. What was all this for? She deserves better. Great story.

Current progress:
Shu Amiguchi- CLEARED
Ryoko Shinonome- CLEARED
Yuki Takamiya- 85%
Keitaro Miura- 75%
Natsuno Minami- 62%
Juro Kurabe- 55%
Ei Sekigahara- 28%
Iori Fuyusaka- prologue done
Takatoshi Hijiyama- prologue done
Megumi Yakushiji- prologue done
Renya Gouto- prologue done
Tomi Kisaragi- prologue available
Nenji Ogata- prologue available

Next I'm thinking of picking Tomi, to complete the trifecta of 'lives ruined by Tetsuya Ida'.

As the professor always says, it can't hurt to be safe.

Tomi Kisaragi
Well, this Tomi has no connection to Ida at all. So much for that plan! We get through Tomi's whole scenario in one sitting, it's nice not to be left in the dark for once. After traveling back to 1985 (the specifics of which we don't get into here, I imagine it will come with Megumi's story), it's not long before Tomi, Ogata, and Miwako are zapped into the ruined sector 3, along with Ryoko. Huh, come to think of it it's never explained how this shift happened, we weren't at a shift gate or anything. Maybe that'll come with Ogata's story, or Iori's. Or Ei's >_>

I like that Miyako and Nenji are friends, that's a nice layer to add to his character. Though I don't think a single person in this game has an issue with Miyako. And why would they! Tomi and Ogata have some decent lightly antagonistic banter throughout their stay here. I like Tomi's personality a lot, she's snarky but not in an overly serious way and her demeanour is pretty relatable.

At some point we get confirmation that the Deimos are machines created by Shikishima for interstellar development, and that Ogata Sr is an executive on the company board. Guess that explains why he's in charge by 2188. Ryoko is her amnesiac self and at this point is on the same side as the Exterminators (great name), who Ei tells us are controlled by Ida. Hm, so are these killer androids the remnants of the failed AI pilots from the last run, or something separate that Ida built for this specific situation? Maybe they're empty husks. Ei and BJ take us to Universal Control itself, the supercomputer underneath the school. Here we briefly contact AI Tomi, before we all shift back to Sector 4.

Well, all of us except Miwako that is. Apparently we are all 'managed' by Universal Control, and as Miwako is not 'one of us' UC deems her knowledge a threat and seemingly wipes her memories of the past few days (or she dies in 2025 and a new Miwako is pulled from the data files for 1985). This is pretty chilling, UC is now seeming like more of a villain than anyone else. Though I'm not sure it has any desires itself or if it's just responding the way it's been programmed to. Again I wonder what the purpose of all of this is, how can any of this help with rebuilding humanity? If these are the people that are supposed to be saved, why erase their memories and force a pretense like this? I'm guessing that by 'one of us' Ryoko means Miwako is incompatible (or something like that), in which case the entirety of these populations outside of the 13 or so pilots are little more than dolls to be rearranged at the whims of the programmer. Very Ida-like!

Unhappy with how things have been left, Tomi breaks off the alliance with Ogata and takes it upon herself to head back to the future. Luckily for her she gets the chance to blackmail Okino into taking her there. We repeat Juro's first day from Tomi's POV (Shiba isn't there of course), and sadly I must dock Tomi points for insulting Okino choosing to present as a woman. You're from the 2020s Tomi, you should know better!

Tomi and Okino shift back to UC and wouldn't you know, Shu, Natsuno and BJ!Miura are here! Now we can continue past Shu's ending scenes, yay. Notably the men in black have gone. It's really cool to see the whole gang pooling their knowledge together to try to learn what's going on, this scene feels way more like a finale than Shu's. Okino uses their authorisation to override Ida's shutdown of #16 (I wonder why Shu couldn't have done that using his identical DNA), and we speak to Miyuki Inaba.

I've finally worked out the timeline of Inaba, a bit belatedly as I probably should've realised it already. Ida creates AI!Tomi, Izumi steals her body and leaves her in a computer, then after Ida hatches his reset plan I'm guessing he acquiesces to Tomi's desire to get in a sentinel. He then has Ryoko trigger the infection to try and stop Morimura from activating Aegis, and in the process Sentinels #16 and #17 are sent to the command ship in orbit. AI!Miura for some reason is removed from his sentinel before this shift (maybe he shifts directly to 1985), but AI!Tomi is not. Tomi then takes on the personality of Inaba to try and sneak past UC to reach out for help, and comes to Shu first as he has the same authorisation as Ida, who she knows. I think that brings us up to speed.

Inaba is now saved, and with Ida out of the picture another reset does not appear to be a threat right now. But she's still in orbit so will be absent most of the time (14 hours of the day, I believe!). Before moving on she remembers we're in Tomi's story and gives us a video recording of 2188 Kisaragi. This Tomi, the original, helped plan the terraforming of the planet we are presumably on right now. She says the simulated terraforming took 1800 years, and unless we're really far into the future (a sure possibility!) then maybe that's why we're limited to five 30km enclosures of a single city. Inaba deduces that the way forward is to alter Universal Control, and then Tomi is on to the final battle. Woo!

A question that is starting to nag at me: where exactly are the 2188 people now? I've been assuming everyone in these enclosures is an AI booted from the data stored in Sector 0, but perhaps they aren't. And if they are, where are the humans? Have they all died long ago? Did they transfer themselves in here somehow? The clones of these scientists all have special privileges the rest of the population in here do not. Why recreate these very specific moments in time? If the Deimos were an unplanned hindrance set in motion by Ryoko, what was the original plan and why did it involve UC being able to rewire the people in here? Well, we've got plenty of time to figure all this out!

Cleared:
Shu Amiguchi
Ryoko Shinonome
Tomi Kisaragi- CLEARED

Uncleared:
Yuki Takamiya- 85%
Keitaro Miura- 75%
Natsuno Minami- 62%
Juro Kurabe- 55%
Ei Sekigahara- 28%
Iori Fuyusaka- prologue done
Takatoshi Hijiyama- prologue done
Megumi Yakushiji- prologue done
Renya Gouto- prologue done
Nenji Ogata- prologue available

I plan to head to Natsuno next and hopefully fill in some gaps, maybe even continuing on after this last scene!

It's really fun seeing which direction you go! Everyone you've completed so far I think I finished toward the end for one reason or another haha.

Of the characters that you haven't done much with there was one character that I really focused on cause I liked their design. And another where once I started it, I kept going back to it cause it was very interesting to me! And then there's others I'm curious why you haven't gone in that direction yet. Not gonna name any names of course, just enjoying the ride!