It’s amusing to me that the first big Vanillaware game which is not let down by unnecessary padding is an adventure game which needs an absurd amount of assets to work. It’s very smart about what can be reused and how, but almost all the way through, I kept being surprised at art I haven’t seen before.
The dialogue is economical, too, in a way almost no visual novels can match. The structure kind of reminds me of Sam Barlow’s games in a way it leaves you to fill the blanks between semi-randomly ordered clips on your own, except 13 Sentinels felt much more impactful for me since a) every detail matters, b) even when there’s repeated information, the context is changed because of a different character’s POV and their reactions, c) its thoughtful, theatrical/painterly framing is infinitely more impactful and conveys far more information than ugly static/handheld camera shots.
I’m always happy to see a game which is not cheaply twee in nature but understands that it can make its pivotal moments work by putting effort into making the 2D character sprites embrace each other in various situations. There’s something human being conveyed here that 3D wouldn’t be able to match.
It’s a comparison some might find offputting, but in a way, the game reminded me of everything I find fascinating about Kingdom Hearts without all the cruft I don’t care for. Melancholic sunset vibes of Twilight Town, the confusion of teenage existential drama reflected by the seemingly indecipherable story backdrop, the easygoing tone clashing against surprisingly dark backstories and cruel plots by adults. The nostalgic Disney crossover aspect is replaced by the 80s setting and the game’s guiding principle - “what if every popular sci-fi gimmick and twist took place in the same universe?”. E.T., Interstellar, Madoka Magica, Terminator, The Stars My Destination, Robot Jox, Macross, Total Recall, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, The War of the Worlds, Source Code, it’s all shamelessly copied, with smaller but still obvious homages to Shutter Island or Sukeban Deka scattered around.
It’s all premade stuff, but it doesn’t reek of something soulless like Ready Player One or depressingly corporate like Kingdom Hearts often is. Everything coheres into one giant sci-fi ecosystem where all the futures we’ve predicted coexist with each other – and ultimately, what the game focuses on is human confusion in the face of (post)modernity and all the possibilities of the future. It’s similar to those mystery games like Zero Escape in the way it piles up mysteries, but without the torturous buildup and winding writing style, and the fact you get a world shattering revelation every 30 minutes instead of at the very end helps (and despite it, the twists aren’t as weightless as they were for me in ZE). The resolution is simple, based in belief in fundamental human goodness and that in the end, all we have is each other – the ending feels slightly too sentimental and perhaps too slight in result, some might discard it as too close to shonen for comfort, but ultimately, it feels honest.
The combat is kind of basic, but it works, especially when you start to get drowned in absurd numbers of enemies. There are four specialized types of units with at least four useful situational tools and various sub-specializations that are fun to abuse in this typical action JRPG way, even if it’s relatively straightforward to find an optimal strategy. On Intense, it’s fun to learn how to break scoring to get insane amounts of upgrade points and keep up with the game’s bonus objectives and S-Rank conditions (the game is trivial if you don’t aim for those). In the final stages, the visuals are half insanely choppy Bangai-O madness, half Fantavision spectacle, the feedback feels nice in general. Haven’t tackled the postgame yet, was pleasantly surprised there is one.
Considering the development history, it was fun to look at the villains’ (if they can be called that) motivations. There was that one interview between Hideaki Anno and Kunihiko Ikuhara where they’ve pointed out how often the villains’ motivations in Japanese pop culture are closely aligned with their own struggles – without getting into specifics, seeing how the puppet masters get frustrated with iterations of their project that don’t work, hope for the entire thing to burn or reluctantly/shrewdly delegate their work to other people struck a chord.
I enjoyed how the section which is most similar to classic point’n’click in its logic tells a story of a burly nationalist who runs around a school looking for spare change while trying to endure everyone’s scornful looks and struggling to resolve his confused sexuality.
i’m at a little under 15 hours in right now, and my Destruction/Rememberance categories are both near or at 50%, so that seems like a good estimate.
a thought that keeps running through my mind as i play is just a very basic mantra of “this, is a videogame.” i just mean that, this is a very videogamey videogame. like trying to do this story in any other medium would lose so much of its impact.
i guess it’s because Vanillaware never really does “cutscenes”; the majority of storytelling is done through the actual game engine (and i guess the little encyclopedia) - it’s truly the natural evolution of what games may have looked like had 3D never been the focal point of the industry.
i guess also a lot of this is really carried by the writing, too. all of the characters are interesting in surprising ways. the ones who might annoy you in another character’s storyline have layers that make them sympathetic in their own storyline.
yeah, this game generally seems to be doing a really good job of forcefully convoluting a pretty standard genre plot in a way that works very well for it.
it’s also the exact sort of ornate and overwrought sci fi plotting i love. i guess i wish it was a bit more mech anime and less kaiju movie, but i’m only 5 hours in.
This is a game where I actively catch myself thinking about it in little moments of downtime which I always like. I wish I was further in but I’m enjoying savouring this and ruminating on the connections. I only just unlocked Renya Gouto but am about 11 hours in.
I’m approaching the end of the third act and am really blown away by the efficiency and economy of the writing. Keeping interest in a plot this long while still maintaining mystery and never feeling like characters are simply fluffing or padding for time is no easy feat. I think having the ‘Analyse’ section be its own thing (equal in space to Remembrance and Destruction) was actually a great idea. The game is telling you to spend time mulling things over rather than just dumping information and expecting a fan wiki to come to the conclusion that none of it makes sense.
Looking forward to dumping some fully fleshed out thoughts after I finish but this game is quickly becoming a favourite from this year. One of my favourite things is just how each character’s narrative is a slight variation on branching storylines and has its own ‘mission’ ranging from the mundane to the world-shattering.
Other than FF7R and Paradise Killer this is basically a GOTY contender for me now.
If you’re still on the fence, this game is not about what you think it’s about. Think of it as a loveletter to sci-fi with a really videogame-centric approach to storytelling and a hopeful message for our humanity.
Big Dump of Endgame Spoilers/Thoughts
This is a game that is ultimately about the apotheosis of humanity. I loved how positive it was, taking a group of people full of distrust, hate, and obsession and through the whole scenario making them people full of love, hope, and ambition to improve the future. Great things borne from horrible motives and circumstances.
The fact that the game turns out to be taking place in a game-like simulation was initially kinda hokey to me but it makes a lot of sense by the end. Framerate stutter in the final horde battles kinda made sense in context as did the whole set-up and loops. It also fits with the running idea that the creators of the Ark project were highly flawed and those flaws manifesting in their work. Who am I to say a game from the 22nd century wouldn’t have such a complicated simulation of kaiju combat.
The slow narrative build up to the sentinel-summoning scenes really give them a proper impact that goes beyond ‘it’s cool when they summon the big robot’. It feels earned which is a strong justification for games of this length (approx. 30 hours).
The romances are mostly believable and the cast is built up well to make the relationships pay off. None of these characters (except possibly Tamao who feels a little underutilised) feel extraneous and no-one is irritating. Each character and each character’s storytelling format is super distinct which really fits their whole bag. Like Natsuno has weirdly upbeat time travel adventures; Gouto basically unravels the keikaku through precise deductive reasoning; Hijiyama has to kill time until Okino’s done at work while struggling with his own powerlessness; Shinonome having to navigate a complex web of branching choices while losing her grip on her memories; Nenji deals with the time loop that is not a time loop and like the player probes at all corners of the station he’s trapped in. The villains have really unimaginably difficult shit they’re dealing with which contrasts nicely with the relative naivety that the main characters have about the situation.
Dramatic irony is off the chart and I love seeing how everything stitches up and looks completely different depending on context and perspective. To be able to do this through so many variations yet also in a direct way is one of the big strengths of videogame storytelling and they use it so well here. Not only that but it has really interesting sci-fi implications that stuck with me. Like Takamiya originally being Natsuno’s mother but then their clones become childhood friends or Shinonome’s clone felling guilt for committing genocide. The concept of creating entirely new people who are AI simulated remnants of previous clone batches is immensely troubling but a really cool idea for the eventually messy civilisation these kids have to rebuild.
The glass ceilings progress well but may also be the game’s biggest barrier to entry since I can’t tell people how good this is without spoiling it. From what I recall it goes - teens with mechs > time travel > multiple universes > far future terraforming facility > nanomachine/memory manipulation > full-on Matrix simulation > utopian endgame. It’s really cool how the game prevents you from outguessing it by unreliable narrating the fuck out of the plot with definitive statements and clever use of Analysis files which serve as authoritative fact early on but then retcon themselves later and basically admit to lying. It’s risky but it pays off since I guessed simulation stuff but didn’t think it was plausible until they wanted me too.
Localisation was pretty solid and they usually opt for the best equivalent although there’s a few noticeably corny choices for slang but it never ruins anything. If I had a major complaint here it’s that I think some characters motivations got a little muddled when explaining the whole plan. Even with the Analysis stuff I had to really double-check what was motivating Child Morimura. It does generally seem well thought out as a story though, I think a few parts are just written to be more opaque at the time of telling which leads to a lack of clarity in some later scenes. How Universal Control doesn’t realise how it’s under attack during a Deimos invasion could really have benefitted from a visual explanation.
The game kinda explains why they’re naked in the cockpits! (Although not why they’re wearing glasses or have certain hairstyles). I guess it would’ve given it away or we can headcanon that the in-game simulation doesn’t want to reveal exactly what’s happening in the lifepods. The epilogue was an interesting contrast of the teens’ bodies with who they’ve become as people now. The fact that many of them had had kids or were talking about marriage was giving me warm but weird vibes about the perfect utopia they lived in.
If there’s a major flaw it’s that some of the character branching points or event progression could be a bit clearer. I spent a long time with Fuyusaka’s initial ‘feed the cat’ scenario and the prompt I wanted just wasn’t coming up. Shinonome also had this issue where you could see that a path was not yet completed but would have to make sure you did the right thing a few steps prior to get the event to trigger.
The post-game is neat and the game really doesn’t need it but I suppose it’s cool to have. The sentinel upgrades (post-armaments) are so extensive they give me anxiety and the game seems like it eventually becomes about score optimisation.
Since the plot is ultimately very similar to both Horizon Zero Dawn and Xenoblade Chronicles X’s I will say that this is a more concise and more mechanically resonant version of this kind of idea. Locating itself in some specific time periods actually gives it a lot more of a human element than XCX and the actual gameplay fits this plot better than I think Horizon’s did (although I think Horizon has an uncommonly good story for a AAA effort).
The music is on-point and has an interesting flip-flop between ambient scene-setting and grandiose electro battle music. The clarinets on this track (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpj-hEUtsCI), and the strings on this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMT8BA73B0Y) fit the alternating moods of humanity’s kindness and its uncertainty of future survival; both are marked by the game’s characteristic optimism.
I just finished this today, took me 50 hours somehow which is a fair amount longer than everyone else here. Not sure if that’s from poring over the analysis files for longer than necessary.
I feel like this is probably GOTY for me so far, although I’m struggling to think of what else I actually played this year that is not a remake or released in previous years.
Some plot spoilers below:
Summary
The overly complex sci-fi plot with twists within twists is entirely my kind of thing. I especially liked how it managed to weave so many totally different sci-fi concepts into something cohesive.
I kinda guessed a whole chunk of the big twists ahead of time, but even so that ended up only being about halfway to the truth.
The big Matrix style reveal felt a bit weird and maybe unnecessary, but I guess it mostly kinda works. It’s a bit odd that the simulation is invaded by what I assume are the real world terraforming robots, I can’t remember if that is addressed but I am guessing it’s because the main computer needs to contain their build data so it can construct them from nanomachines.
What I took away from it thematically was that it was about breaking free of endless loops. Not just the core plotline of the simulation resetting every 16 years, and Nenji’s literal Groundhog Day scenario, but also just in how many of the character stories revolve around the same starting points, like Juro trying to find Shu to hang out, the girls going out for crepes and talking about boys, Hijiyama wandering around looking for change. The repetition of their somewhat mundane daily routines, only breaking free of it once they find their purpose.
I played the battles on Intense difficulty, and maybe I just kinda suck at strategy games but they started getting pretty hard in the last third. I was mostly getting D ranks for the last few, and ended up switched the difficulty down to Normal for the final battle just so I could finish it.
There were quite a few unexpected references tucked away in there besides all the movie / HG Wells stuff, including one to Minako Honda’s album M’Syndrome
My interpretation is that Shikishima presumably had this data stored there for the means of terraforming the planet that everything now actually resides on. This is just data the simulation presumably has access too along with all the other things concerning the various time periods. The reason they actually show up was due to [original] Shinonome’s despair at the whole thing and sabotaging the program to fail. They kind of gloss over this since it’s only really mentioned in one scene and way before the player will be able to put a lot of the pieces together unless they’re going back to analyse regularly.
I feel like the Matrix reveal generally makes sense but feels strange because it’s something the player could easily guess from the outset but they work super hard to misdirect you away from that assumption multiple times. I assumed they were just on a colony ship for the longest time because of the constant talk about sectors and boundaries between them as well as the misdirect of time travel actually being physical teleportation (but it’s neither).
I never tried Intense difficulty but I assume it naturally takes a lot longer since you just breeze through everything but the final sector on Normal. I don’t think I actually lost a sentinel on Normal come to think of it.
same here.
i finished it last week, i think 33 hours overall (getting the platinum trophy).
this game is wonderful in a way that isn’t necessarily deep, just consistently fun with it’s storytelling. all the plotting is so precise and the characters are lovely and the art is charming. a real good time.
Yep, I think I basically came to the same conclusion as you, it’s just with the matrix reveal it sort of adds an extra layer of complexity and makes confusing an explanation that made perfect sense beforehand. And then they don’t really address that particular detail in the ending itself.
I also thought for the longest time that the reveal would basically be phantasy star 3 crossed with Westworld
Yeah, I got back to it after having to put it on pause in october and I should finish it tonight. It’s been marvelous all the way and at this stage I don’t see how it wouldn’t be my favorite Vanillaware game. Every aspect of it has just been so compelling.
There’s some really nice body language touches even when you’re in control of the characters, like turning towards characters they care about (or away from them) when idle or having different expressions when running, it’s exquisitely crafted.
Here’s a non-spoiling PSA: you can run by holding down Square! This might be important at some point or just convenient.
There was a point in one character’s story where I just couldn’t figure out how to progress, and until I discovered that by accident I had to stop there. Now that you know, that shouldn’t happen to you.
I guess slowly walking everywhere is why my clear time was 60 hours, or maybe it’s just because I liked spending the time so much.
It doesn’t just fast forward text, it fast forwards scenes, even ones where you have control! Very handy if you’re waiting for something specific to happen.