straightforwardly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
straightforwardly) wrote2019-01-18 09:14 pm
straightforwardly) wrote2019-01-18 09:14 pm
204 | OZMAFIA!! — Hamelin, Soh, and Caesar's routes
I have so much (too much?) to talk about re: OZMAFIA!! today! Since my last update, I’ve played through Hamelin, Soh, and Caesar’s routes (in that order), meaning that I’ve now finished all of the routes — I only have the overall ending to play after this.
Hamelin
The main thing that I was hoping for from this route was an explanation of what, exactly is going on with Hamelin, and… it didn’t quite deliver on that front. There were more references to something — “fate” — controlling him, and he makes it clear that he actively doesn’t want to do many of the things that he does. His body acting against the wishes of his mind, essentially. But it’s still not clear what, exactly, is doing this, or why. I suppose that it’s still possible that he’s simply just insane — and if the grand ending doesn’t touch on any of this, I’ll have to default to that explanation — but it doesn’t feel satisfying to me, narratively speaking.
We did get some more insight into what’s going on in Hamelin’s mind throughout all of this, and that was pretty delicious. So much self-loathing! That mixed with how clear his love for his famiglia is made for a pretty iddy mix for me. He’s just so very pathetic, in a way that really appeals to me.
On the other hand, I had essentially negative interest in Hamelin/Fuka. The “angel” thing really, really didn’t work for me*, and the romance itself felt incredibly rushed — I felt really shocked when it became clear that Hamelin had feelings for Fuka, because it definitely did not feel like it should have reached that point yet! (Though, to be fair, this route did literally only have half the time to develop the relationship as the other routes did.) There was such a gorgeous kissing CG at one point, and I couldn’t help but think what a waste it was, because I wasn’t invested in the scene at all.
*(Though the Caramia - god line that Hamelin says in the good ending almost made the rest of it worth it for me. That was a delight.)
The good ending did surprise me a little — I initially thought that they would genuinely manage to run away together! (Though, considering some of the events in Soh’s route — that probably wouldn’t have worked out like they thought.) His getting imprisoned for eternity was — well, I did genuinely like it as an ending, but it’s not what I’d consider a standard good ending. But, again, I still really liked it! (And that bit where Axel refers to Fuka as a “relatively competent soldati” was just ♥)
When I played the bad ending, though, I did understand better why the other one was a good ending — because that’s the ending where Hamelin conquers “fate”’s hold on him / frees himself mentally/spiritually, even if he’s physically imprisoned. (I’m also struck by how Hamelin doesn’t use the pipe in the good ending — even if it would have helped versus Caesar — but turns straight to its aid in the bad ending. I feel like it definitely has a role to play in this mystery.) As for the bad ending itself… well, I did really enjoy the kidnapping bits. Also, finally someone takes the time to wonder if Fuka is someone who can die or not! Granted, it was in the context of a threat, but still — it’s something I’ve been wondering about pretty much since I started wondering the ruling cast were immortals or not, so it was nice to see the question raised in the narrative. Also, I finally got to see a possessed Pashet! ♥
But the epilogue was — well. Fuka becomes a nun, we get more of Manboy’s weird purity fixation, and though there were some really great Alfani bits, it was overall easily my least favorite ending so far. Though it is interesting that the only endings where Fuka doesn’t seem to continue to explicitly have a connection with Famiglia Oz, are those where she ends the game a bond with the brothel cast instead.
One thing I did like about this route was Fuka taking an active interest in what her past might be. That plotline did get dropped in favor of the romance, unfortunately, but still — I enjoyed what we got.
I did have to laugh a bit at the beginning of this route when Caramia just casually explains the immortality situation to Fuka. All that time I spent piecing together the pieces—! And Hamelin drinking all of Dorian’s wine (even unknowingly) gave me the pettiest of amusement, because I really do dislike him that much.
Soh
After playing this route, I — still don’t really care about Soh, but I am interested in the lore it brought up! I’ve been wondering for a bit if Soh somehow knew Fuka pre-amnesia, but it turns out the truth is more intriguing than that! There’s still so many mysteries that need to be answered, but at this point I’m certain that:
1. Soh is somehow connected to the town itself and specifically the tower in the center of the town. He might even be the tower? Or something inside it? (There was that legend about a “king” that Axel mentioned, which definitely isn’t the whole story, but maybe there’s a grain of truth to it?)
2. Fuka is also somehow connected to the town itself, and probably/possibly Soh as well. (Otherwise — why would his removing himself from her memories heal the damage that leaving the town causes to her?)
3. The “Soh” we see in the game isn’t his real body — even if you ignore the whole “corpse turns into a flower” thing, he also mentions something along the lines of how he’s like to “stay locked up in this shell”, which I took to mean the body that he’s in.
So many questions! I’m finding this all very interesting, especially the connection between Fuka and Soh. I’m going to touch on this when talking about Caesar’s route too, but: outwardly, Soh and Fuka have a lot of similarities — a cute, wide-eyed appearance, their hair and eyes being the reverse color as each other’s, an outward sense of friendliness and kindness in how they interact with others — but when you start to dig into their characters, Soh is much more callous than Fuka. Which, if they end up being two halves of one — thing, for a lack of a better word, like I think they might be — would make a lot of sense.
(On that note, his lack of care for Caesar at the end genuinely saddened me. Especially since he did seem to care before! Even in the extra scenes — he spends time worrying about how Caesar will take care of himself when he’s gone! But when he might have killed Caesar / doesn’t know if he lived or died, he just flat-out thinks to himself that he doesn’t care, and not in a way where it felt like he was lying to himself.)
(I did have a moment when first playing the route where I wondered if Soh’s mysterious illness had anything to do with a connection to Caesar — mostly because he referenced feeling like he was stabbed in the chest. But Fuka being the one affected in the bad ending wiped away that theory.)
Also — there’s one aspect of this route that I can’t help to compare to Hamelin’s, and that’s the concept of “freeing” Fuka. Mostly, in that in Hamelin’s good ending, he feels relieved because he managed to “free” her when he gave himself up, even though they didn’t escape the town together like they planned — while in Soh’s endings, he castigates himself for failing to free her because they had to return back to the town after their attempt at escape. It’s possible that they’re talking about different kinds of “freedom”, but I still find it interesting, especially since they’re possibly/arguably the two LIs who are the most plugged-in to what’s going on with the overall plot. (Also, the fact that Hamelin and Soh don’t recognize one another in Hamelin’s route / that Soh apparently showed up after Hamelin was exiled is potentially interesting, considering everything that we learned about Soh in this route.)
Finally: Caesar’s happiness when Soh gives him a pack of matches? The cutest. So is his expression when he thinks he’s going to get meat for dinner. ♥
(Also: I wonder why he paused when Fuka called out to him during the Soh vs. Caesar fight.)
Caesar
First, before I say anything else: I loved, loved, loved this route, I loved Caesar, I loved Caesar/Fuka, and I’m so glad that I saved this one for last, because it was a good note to end on before moving on to the final ending. Save for Fuka/Pashet (which wasn’t canon), I think this is the only route where I really felt like I saw both Fuka and her LI falling for one another, and it’s definitely one of my favorite Fuka pairings — maybe even my absolute favorite.
I only have one real criticism of this route, and it was this: Caesar’s reasons for wanting to kill Fuka are never revealed. And Fuka never asks! I really hope we find out in the overall ending, because otherwise, I feel like that’s a pretty big oversight, considering how much screen time is used on Caesar trying to kill her.
I did replay the prologue instead of skipping straight to my “first Sunday” save file when doing this route, and Caesar did say something that interested me there — “I finally found you.” (Emphasis mine.) That does seem to suggest that he was looking for her for a while, and her specifically. He also, in the first Sunday where they’re able to meet, says that they should “abandon ourselves to destiny”, which — could very well be his usual sense of melodrama, but also could be a hint? Especially considering his proximity to Soh / the fact that Soh in his route keeps referring to there being some sort of plan? (Though Soh also clearly didn’t want Fuka to die… I’ll have to think about this some more.)
One thing that absolutely delighted me about this route was the realization of just how similar Caesar and Fuka are! It’s just too cute, and honestly made me appreciate Fuka more in a weird way, seeing her traits being reflected in Caesar. (Also, on that note, I laughed hard when it was revealed that Caesar’s good at catching fish with his hands — because in Soh’s route, Fuka also turned out to be good at doing that! ...And I laughed even harder when it turned out that Caesar also thought that Scarlet was a girl. To quote my notes: “CAESAR ALSO MISTAKENED SCARLET FOR A GIRL O H M Y G O D he and fuka are truly meant to be”.)
It’s an interesting parallel with Soh’s route, too — Soh and Fuka are outwardly similar, but turn out to be inwardly surprisingly different, while Caesar and Fuka are outwardly complete opposites, but turn out to be inwardly surprisingly similar.
Also, I spent so much of this route flailing at how adorable Caesar was, and was pretty damn delighted when Fuka got it too:
But seriously. He’s too adorable. His smug expressions! His conviction that Famiglia Oz is terrified of him (and how Fuka has to make a quick save when she tells him the truth of their reaction)! EVERY SINGLE TIME HE BLUSHES. WHEN HE BLUSHED BECAUSE HE WAS EMBARRASSED ABOUT HOW HE’D ACCIDENTALLY BLUSHED IN FRONT OF FUKA. His smug, proud smile when Fuka complimented Soh! His agreeing to invite Fuka to dinner just so he can offload his vegetables on her — and how smug he looks when he does it! His trying to pretend that he still wants to kill Fuka even when it’s really obvious that he doesn’t! Just, all of his flimsy excuses! His worrying about her friendless-ness! His thinking that firewood is a good thank you gift! Honestly, I could go on, but the tl;dr version is that I love him, I love him, I love him.
I also really love how he’s surprisingly good at seeing from different perspectives than his own? I’m specifically thinking of that scene where he gives a surprisingly powerful argument for why a rainy day can be considered as being “good weather” rather than a sunny day, before revealing that he doesn’t actually like rainy days. I feel like there was another scene like that as well, but I can’t remember it and can’t find any mention in my notes, so.
Also, his pulling her in by the necklace he made her for their first kiss was super good for my id. As was how, in the very beginning, he explicitly protects her (without her knowing) from people from the slums because he wants to be the one who kills her.
I liked both endings a lot, but some aspects of the good ending worked a little better for me. The Kyrie-Caesar-Fuka banter about Caesar having no job! Famiglia Oz throwing Caesar a party and his not knowing how to deal with it! I’m not sure how I feel about him taking a role within the power structure of the town, but everything else was very good.
Though… okay. So in the epilogue he invites Fuka to dinner (that he says Soh will cook), and she also brought him a lunch in that same scene. But Fuka is canonically terrible at cooking. So— could it be that Caramia actually made the lunch that she gives him? And that they both essentially give each other food that they got from other people? Because I find that idea really amusing, for some reason.
That being said, I also really like the bad ending! HIS STABBING HIMSELF SO THAT HE WOULDN’T HURT FUKA, ahhhh. I keep saying this, but that was so good for my id. I don’t have too much to say about the rest of it, but I do like that the relationship between Caesar and (most of) Famiglia Oz turn out to be rather more positive in this ending as well — they seem to view the whole thing as more than a game than anything.
In general, I’m really impressed by Caesar’s relative immunity to Hamelin’s pipe? Everyone else gets taken over by it nigh-instantly, but he struggles against it. He was also able to break its control over him in both endings, and he was able to remember what he did while under its control — all of which are things that, iirc, even Caramia has trouble with.
Now, time for some theories. I’ve been wondering what Caesar is — namely, is he an immortal or not? Is he actually the Big Bad Wolf? Where did he come from? (Though I suppose that the answer to that might be dependent on another question, which is: what is this town/world, exactly?)
Also, is it my imagination, or is that a scar or tattoo ringing around his neck? It’s usually very faint, but sometimes it shows up more clearly:
(That might just be a character design choice, but I’m still curious.)
He does seem to be a normal human in that his healing time was very much more like that a normal human would need after his injuries, and he does deny being an animal to Kyrie (though he’d never said anything about it any other time), but I’m not quite convinced.
I do have a bit of a theory about him, though. I wonder — could the “wolf” perhaps be a reincarnating or repeating role in the town? When Hamelin thinks that he’s about to kill Caesar in their second fight in the good ending, he says this:
It’s pretty clear that he was about to say “until we meet again”. Which — doesn’t strike me as the usual thing you’d say to someone you were about to kill, especially if you thought that death would be permanent.
There’s also Scarlet’s intense uneasiness around him without knowing why — which I initially took as being evidence of Scarlet’s foggy memories, but Caesar doesn’t seem know about any particular history with him either. Caesar being a reincarnation / new incarnation of a previous wolf could possibly explain that.
(He also didn’t seem to know what “to work” really meant, which could have been an offhand thing, but maybe not. If he was spontaneously created for some reason — like what I think Fuka might have been — then he might not have much of a past or knowledge base to speak of either.)
It’s not much of a theory, but that’s the only thing that I can come up with.
All that’s left is the overall ending. I’m...a little nervous about it, actually. I still have so many questions, and I have no idea if it’ll answer them all satisfactorily or at all. I hope so — I’ve gotten pretty invested in this game at this point, and I really want it to wrap up well.
Hamelin
The main thing that I was hoping for from this route was an explanation of what, exactly is going on with Hamelin, and… it didn’t quite deliver on that front. There were more references to something — “fate” — controlling him, and he makes it clear that he actively doesn’t want to do many of the things that he does. His body acting against the wishes of his mind, essentially. But it’s still not clear what, exactly, is doing this, or why. I suppose that it’s still possible that he’s simply just insane — and if the grand ending doesn’t touch on any of this, I’ll have to default to that explanation — but it doesn’t feel satisfying to me, narratively speaking.
We did get some more insight into what’s going on in Hamelin’s mind throughout all of this, and that was pretty delicious. So much self-loathing! That mixed with how clear his love for his famiglia is made for a pretty iddy mix for me. He’s just so very pathetic, in a way that really appeals to me.
On the other hand, I had essentially negative interest in Hamelin/Fuka. The “angel” thing really, really didn’t work for me*, and the romance itself felt incredibly rushed — I felt really shocked when it became clear that Hamelin had feelings for Fuka, because it definitely did not feel like it should have reached that point yet! (Though, to be fair, this route did literally only have half the time to develop the relationship as the other routes did.) There was such a gorgeous kissing CG at one point, and I couldn’t help but think what a waste it was, because I wasn’t invested in the scene at all.
*(Though the Caramia - god line that Hamelin says in the good ending almost made the rest of it worth it for me. That was a delight.)
The good ending did surprise me a little — I initially thought that they would genuinely manage to run away together! (Though, considering some of the events in Soh’s route — that probably wouldn’t have worked out like they thought.) His getting imprisoned for eternity was — well, I did genuinely like it as an ending, but it’s not what I’d consider a standard good ending. But, again, I still really liked it! (And that bit where Axel refers to Fuka as a “relatively competent soldati” was just ♥)
When I played the bad ending, though, I did understand better why the other one was a good ending — because that’s the ending where Hamelin conquers “fate”’s hold on him / frees himself mentally/spiritually, even if he’s physically imprisoned. (I’m also struck by how Hamelin doesn’t use the pipe in the good ending — even if it would have helped versus Caesar — but turns straight to its aid in the bad ending. I feel like it definitely has a role to play in this mystery.) As for the bad ending itself… well, I did really enjoy the kidnapping bits. Also, finally someone takes the time to wonder if Fuka is someone who can die or not! Granted, it was in the context of a threat, but still — it’s something I’ve been wondering about pretty much since I started wondering the ruling cast were immortals or not, so it was nice to see the question raised in the narrative. Also, I finally got to see a possessed Pashet! ♥
But the epilogue was — well. Fuka becomes a nun, we get more of Manboy’s weird purity fixation, and though there were some really great Alfani bits, it was overall easily my least favorite ending so far. Though it is interesting that the only endings where Fuka doesn’t seem to continue to explicitly have a connection with Famiglia Oz, are those where she ends the game a bond with the brothel cast instead.
One thing I did like about this route was Fuka taking an active interest in what her past might be. That plotline did get dropped in favor of the romance, unfortunately, but still — I enjoyed what we got.
I did have to laugh a bit at the beginning of this route when Caramia just casually explains the immortality situation to Fuka. All that time I spent piecing together the pieces—! And Hamelin drinking all of Dorian’s wine (even unknowingly) gave me the pettiest of amusement, because I really do dislike him that much.
Soh
After playing this route, I — still don’t really care about Soh, but I am interested in the lore it brought up! I’ve been wondering for a bit if Soh somehow knew Fuka pre-amnesia, but it turns out the truth is more intriguing than that! There’s still so many mysteries that need to be answered, but at this point I’m certain that:
1. Soh is somehow connected to the town itself and specifically the tower in the center of the town. He might even be the tower? Or something inside it? (There was that legend about a “king” that Axel mentioned, which definitely isn’t the whole story, but maybe there’s a grain of truth to it?)
2. Fuka is also somehow connected to the town itself, and probably/possibly Soh as well. (Otherwise — why would his removing himself from her memories heal the damage that leaving the town causes to her?)
3. The “Soh” we see in the game isn’t his real body — even if you ignore the whole “corpse turns into a flower” thing, he also mentions something along the lines of how he’s like to “stay locked up in this shell”, which I took to mean the body that he’s in.
So many questions! I’m finding this all very interesting, especially the connection between Fuka and Soh. I’m going to touch on this when talking about Caesar’s route too, but: outwardly, Soh and Fuka have a lot of similarities — a cute, wide-eyed appearance, their hair and eyes being the reverse color as each other’s, an outward sense of friendliness and kindness in how they interact with others — but when you start to dig into their characters, Soh is much more callous than Fuka. Which, if they end up being two halves of one — thing, for a lack of a better word, like I think they might be — would make a lot of sense.
(On that note, his lack of care for Caesar at the end genuinely saddened me. Especially since he did seem to care before! Even in the extra scenes — he spends time worrying about how Caesar will take care of himself when he’s gone! But when he might have killed Caesar / doesn’t know if he lived or died, he just flat-out thinks to himself that he doesn’t care, and not in a way where it felt like he was lying to himself.)
(I did have a moment when first playing the route where I wondered if Soh’s mysterious illness had anything to do with a connection to Caesar — mostly because he referenced feeling like he was stabbed in the chest. But Fuka being the one affected in the bad ending wiped away that theory.)
Also — there’s one aspect of this route that I can’t help to compare to Hamelin’s, and that’s the concept of “freeing” Fuka. Mostly, in that in Hamelin’s good ending, he feels relieved because he managed to “free” her when he gave himself up, even though they didn’t escape the town together like they planned — while in Soh’s endings, he castigates himself for failing to free her because they had to return back to the town after their attempt at escape. It’s possible that they’re talking about different kinds of “freedom”, but I still find it interesting, especially since they’re possibly/arguably the two LIs who are the most plugged-in to what’s going on with the overall plot. (Also, the fact that Hamelin and Soh don’t recognize one another in Hamelin’s route / that Soh apparently showed up after Hamelin was exiled is potentially interesting, considering everything that we learned about Soh in this route.)
Finally: Caesar’s happiness when Soh gives him a pack of matches? The cutest. So is his expression when he thinks he’s going to get meat for dinner. ♥
(Also: I wonder why he paused when Fuka called out to him during the Soh vs. Caesar fight.)
Caesar
First, before I say anything else: I loved, loved, loved this route, I loved Caesar, I loved Caesar/Fuka, and I’m so glad that I saved this one for last, because it was a good note to end on before moving on to the final ending. Save for Fuka/Pashet (which wasn’t canon), I think this is the only route where I really felt like I saw both Fuka and her LI falling for one another, and it’s definitely one of my favorite Fuka pairings — maybe even my absolute favorite.
I only have one real criticism of this route, and it was this: Caesar’s reasons for wanting to kill Fuka are never revealed. And Fuka never asks! I really hope we find out in the overall ending, because otherwise, I feel like that’s a pretty big oversight, considering how much screen time is used on Caesar trying to kill her.
I did replay the prologue instead of skipping straight to my “first Sunday” save file when doing this route, and Caesar did say something that interested me there — “I finally found you.” (Emphasis mine.) That does seem to suggest that he was looking for her for a while, and her specifically. He also, in the first Sunday where they’re able to meet, says that they should “abandon ourselves to destiny”, which — could very well be his usual sense of melodrama, but also could be a hint? Especially considering his proximity to Soh / the fact that Soh in his route keeps referring to there being some sort of plan? (Though Soh also clearly didn’t want Fuka to die… I’ll have to think about this some more.)
One thing that absolutely delighted me about this route was the realization of just how similar Caesar and Fuka are! It’s just too cute, and honestly made me appreciate Fuka more in a weird way, seeing her traits being reflected in Caesar. (Also, on that note, I laughed hard when it was revealed that Caesar’s good at catching fish with his hands — because in Soh’s route, Fuka also turned out to be good at doing that! ...And I laughed even harder when it turned out that Caesar also thought that Scarlet was a girl. To quote my notes: “CAESAR ALSO MISTAKENED SCARLET FOR A GIRL O H M Y G O D he and fuka are truly meant to be”.)
It’s an interesting parallel with Soh’s route, too — Soh and Fuka are outwardly similar, but turn out to be inwardly surprisingly different, while Caesar and Fuka are outwardly complete opposites, but turn out to be inwardly surprisingly similar.
Also, I spent so much of this route flailing at how adorable Caesar was, and was pretty damn delighted when Fuka got it too:
But seriously. He’s too adorable. His smug expressions! His conviction that Famiglia Oz is terrified of him (and how Fuka has to make a quick save when she tells him the truth of their reaction)! EVERY SINGLE TIME HE BLUSHES. WHEN HE BLUSHED BECAUSE HE WAS EMBARRASSED ABOUT HOW HE’D ACCIDENTALLY BLUSHED IN FRONT OF FUKA. His smug, proud smile when Fuka complimented Soh! His agreeing to invite Fuka to dinner just so he can offload his vegetables on her — and how smug he looks when he does it! His trying to pretend that he still wants to kill Fuka even when it’s really obvious that he doesn’t! Just, all of his flimsy excuses! His worrying about her friendless-ness! His thinking that firewood is a good thank you gift! Honestly, I could go on, but the tl;dr version is that I love him, I love him, I love him.
I also really love how he’s surprisingly good at seeing from different perspectives than his own? I’m specifically thinking of that scene where he gives a surprisingly powerful argument for why a rainy day can be considered as being “good weather” rather than a sunny day, before revealing that he doesn’t actually like rainy days. I feel like there was another scene like that as well, but I can’t remember it and can’t find any mention in my notes, so.
Also, his pulling her in by the necklace he made her for their first kiss was super good for my id. As was how, in the very beginning, he explicitly protects her (without her knowing) from people from the slums because he wants to be the one who kills her.
I liked both endings a lot, but some aspects of the good ending worked a little better for me. The Kyrie-Caesar-Fuka banter about Caesar having no job! Famiglia Oz throwing Caesar a party and his not knowing how to deal with it! I’m not sure how I feel about him taking a role within the power structure of the town, but everything else was very good.
Though… okay. So in the epilogue he invites Fuka to dinner (that he says Soh will cook), and she also brought him a lunch in that same scene. But Fuka is canonically terrible at cooking. So— could it be that Caramia actually made the lunch that she gives him? And that they both essentially give each other food that they got from other people? Because I find that idea really amusing, for some reason.
That being said, I also really like the bad ending! HIS STABBING HIMSELF SO THAT HE WOULDN’T HURT FUKA, ahhhh. I keep saying this, but that was so good for my id. I don’t have too much to say about the rest of it, but I do like that the relationship between Caesar and (most of) Famiglia Oz turn out to be rather more positive in this ending as well — they seem to view the whole thing as more than a game than anything.
In general, I’m really impressed by Caesar’s relative immunity to Hamelin’s pipe? Everyone else gets taken over by it nigh-instantly, but he struggles against it. He was also able to break its control over him in both endings, and he was able to remember what he did while under its control — all of which are things that, iirc, even Caramia has trouble with.
Now, time for some theories. I’ve been wondering what Caesar is — namely, is he an immortal or not? Is he actually the Big Bad Wolf? Where did he come from? (Though I suppose that the answer to that might be dependent on another question, which is: what is this town/world, exactly?)
Also, is it my imagination, or is that a scar or tattoo ringing around his neck? It’s usually very faint, but sometimes it shows up more clearly:
(That might just be a character design choice, but I’m still curious.)
He does seem to be a normal human in that his healing time was very much more like that a normal human would need after his injuries, and he does deny being an animal to Kyrie (though he’d never said anything about it any other time), but I’m not quite convinced.
I do have a bit of a theory about him, though. I wonder — could the “wolf” perhaps be a reincarnating or repeating role in the town? When Hamelin thinks that he’s about to kill Caesar in their second fight in the good ending, he says this:
It’s pretty clear that he was about to say “until we meet again”. Which — doesn’t strike me as the usual thing you’d say to someone you were about to kill, especially if you thought that death would be permanent.
There’s also Scarlet’s intense uneasiness around him without knowing why — which I initially took as being evidence of Scarlet’s foggy memories, but Caesar doesn’t seem know about any particular history with him either. Caesar being a reincarnation / new incarnation of a previous wolf could possibly explain that.
(He also didn’t seem to know what “to work” really meant, which could have been an offhand thing, but maybe not. If he was spontaneously created for some reason — like what I think Fuka might have been — then he might not have much of a past or knowledge base to speak of either.)
It’s not much of a theory, but that’s the only thing that I can come up with.
All that’s left is the overall ending. I’m...a little nervous about it, actually. I still have so many questions, and I have no idea if it’ll answer them all satisfactorily or at all. I hope so — I’ve gotten pretty invested in this game at this point, and I really want it to wrap up well.