straightforwardly | 096 | as promised: thoughts on Amnesia: Memories. & ERASED, because I started writing this last week

► When I promised that I’d talk about Amnesia Memories in my next post, I… had planned on it being much sooner than this. This would normally bode ill for the amount of detail I’d include, since it’s been weeks since I played it, but fortunately, I actually did a liveblog on a (private, locked) tumblr for my own benefit, so I have something to jog my memory with!

THIS GAME. ♥ It might not be the best otome game I’ve ever played, but I certainly have a lot of fondness for it. I had so much fun playing it! And making up wild theories, most of which never came through.

I played the routes in this order: Ikki, Shin, Kent, Toma, Ukyo.

With the first route, I went in completely blind. Initially, I was...kind of disappointed? It looked like Ikki was going to be an idol, which is most definitely not my thing, and even when that turned out to not be the case, I was still a bit iffy because I’ve never been a fan of the whole “handsome guy chased by a club of fangirls” thing either.

And then I totally fell in love. ♥ There’s a lot about his route that I didn’t like, but Ikki himself? Definitely a favorite. Plus, so much of his relationship dynamic with the Heroine was right up my alley. I was a bit disappointed with the reveal about how their relationship started, but otherwise, A+.

Also— maybe it was because it was the first route I played, and the existence of Ikki’s magic eyes threw me off, but this was definitely the route where I formed the craziest theories-that-never-came-true. I was half-convinced that Ikki was an incubus at one point.

I also came out of this route shipping Mine/Sawa so hard, and being absolutely convinced that Kent and Ikki’s friendship was the CUTEST.

After finishing his route up, I deliberately chose the order that I played the rest of the routes in. I found Toma super-intriguing (partially because of the stepbrother-thing that was only-ever-in-Ikki’s-route, ahahaha), so I decided to save him for last. And I knew quite a few people on FFA liked Kent’s route best, so I decided I’d do him second-to-last. Which left Shin as being next in line.

I...liked it? I wasn’t as convinced by the romance as I was in Ikki’s route, but I liked the plot a lot (Shin & Kent: best detective duo, or BEST detective duo?), and ended up becoming much, much more fond of Shin by the end of. His not wanting to hurt anyone / hating blood & violence really resonated with me.

Also, this was the route that introduced me to what I fondly think of as the OT3. The dynamics of childhood friends!Shin/Toma/Heroine is just so delightfully messed up, and, despite my fondness for stepbrother!Toma, I was absolutely delighted to see it pop up on multiple routes.

Then I did Kent’s route, which… started out super promising? But it ended up hitting on some personal insecurities, which led to me getting very upset with Kent for a bit, and even when I managed to move passed that, it really affected my enjoyment of both him and his route as a whole. There were some great Ikki & Kent moments, but otherwise, I don’t see myself replaying this one again.

Also, I’m sorry, but I think he actually made the best decision re: the conference in the path to the normal ending, even if it ultimately worked out better in the good ending.

So it was a good thing that I played Toma’s route next, because TOMA. ♥ I always thought that I didn’t really like yandere characters, but apparently it works for me when the yandere is a guy? He’s so messed up, his relationship with the Heroine is completely messed up, and while it did stumble a bit at the ending, I loved nearly every moment of it. ♥

Also, after playing Toma’s route and seeing Ikki’s second bad ending (“I’ll get rid of those who hurt you”), I now really want to see Ikki and Toma becoming murder-buddies post-said bad ending.

Finally, I… don’t really have too much to say about Ukyo’s route? It was nice to get some answers— I was a bit surprised to realize that Ukyo was actually a normal (....well, normal-ish) person before all of this started— but I wasn’t too crazy about Ukyo himself. He’s on about the same level as Kent, for me. Though between his route and Toma’s route, I realized that not only do I ship Ikki/Heroine, but that I’m also really, really into their friendship. Ikki’s happiness over having a female friend who wasn’t in love with him was adorable!

Speaking of friendships, I also really loved the Heroine’s relationship with Orion! And it made me really sad when I realized that she forgets about him entirely. D: Their friendship was so sweet.

So, tl;dr, while there were things I didn’t like about it, overall I really enjoyed the game.

► I watched the fourth episode of ERASED the other day, and THAT ENDING.

Unless I greatly misunderstood it… Hinazuki got murdered, right? I suppose it’s possible that she was just kidnapped / not dead yet, but the emphasis on the broken promise suggests to me that she’s probably dead. Which… D:

I’ve been tossing theories about where it’s going to go from here ever since. At first, I was thinking that maybe time will end up rewinding for the main character, and again, until he does manage to save her? And who knows, maybe that is where it’s going, but I wasn’t quite wedded to the idea, so I kept thinking further. And then I remembered Yuuki. Maybe the anime isn’t about saving Hinazuki at all, but rather finding out who killed her / preventing Yuuki from being blamed for it.

And then it hit me, and I feel like an idiot for missing the obvious.

Satoru’s Revival ability activates where there’s something that needs to be changed, right? And usually, it was only for five or so minutes, at most, if I recall correctly. This is the first time he’s ever gone so far back into the past. So, if the point was to save Hinazuki or Yuuki, why didn’t it activate earlier, when he was younger?

And then I remembered when it activated, and it hit me. The point isn’t to save Hinazuki or Yuuki (though I do think he’s going to uncover the killer, and maybe/hopefully save Yuuki in the process). The point is to save his mother— who knows (or has the potential to realize) who the killer is. He just doesn’t realize that because he has no idea who killed his mother in the original timeline, or why.

I’m headdesking so hard right now, because it would have taken only a few minutes of critical thinking to realize this, and yet I went three whole episodes with that flying over my head. Like, I realized that changing the past = saving his mother, but I didn’t make the connection that that was likely the entire point.

Of course, I could be wrong about everything, and Hinazuki is saved, or the theme of the anime ends up being about the inevitability of ever changing fate in a meaningful way, but. Shrug. We’ll see.