I'm still kinda ruminating on the whole thing. Last night my immediate impressions after finishing it were: that was kinda fucking lame. I hated Akane and thought that the whole thing was just too overly complicated. I've softened up on both of those after thinking about it for a while though. Overall it was amazing but the ending is actually still really difficult to come to grips with.
Guess I'll just start out with character stuff. First off I'll say that I feel like Clover was kind of an unnecessary addition to the story. I get that they needed an esper, but did it really have to be Clover? Unless I missed something major, the fact that it was her specifically there didn't come up much. I feel like her and Alice are like a single character since their actions are often mirrored or supported by one another. I was pretty disappointed that there was nothing more involving them with Akane and Junpei than a couple lines of dialogue at the end.
K was actually one of my favorite characters throughout, really dug how mysterious he/she was. When his mask first came off I wat'd so hard. Also such a great OH SHIT moment when Akane takes off the armor in the true ending. Kyle was....eh I don't know. Felt like he was kind of a player surrogate in that final little section. His backstory was sad though.
Dio was a great villain. Also, fuck Dio forever. Him being a villain was actually one of the few predicable things in the game, though his background was still cool to discover. Also interesting how they mention that Ace was a member of Free the Soul, shows that they've been around for quite a while. Also while reading discovered that the robe Snake is in in 999 has a Free the Soul logo on it...as does Akane's robe in the flashback to 2029.
Luna is great. Her being a robot just made so much sense as the game went on. Was suspicious as soon as the Three Rules of Robotics thing came up and I connected that to her always choosing ally. And my suspicions were confirmed not long after. Always find the question of robots gaining sentience to be really interesting, loved the reveal that she had actually gone against her orders and deactivated Zero Jr. Cockney Gol-M was amazing too, dat voice acting.
Phi is one big fucking crazy question mark for me. For starters, I hate her attitude through most of the game. Felt like it was so hard to relate to her actions in a lot of cases because I had no idea what her past was or what her motivations are. They revealed next to nothing about her in this game and it's kind of infuriating. For someone who's supposed to be so important to the AB game you'd think they'd let us in on the reasons more. What was she doing before the Mars test site? How was she even involved? How did Akane know about her esper powers? I assume this is all stuff they will go over in the third game. If you have any insight to any of this, please let me know. I did like her lighter moments though and I appreciated her vindictive streak even if it totally made me hella mad at times. I think it's a good thing that I'm really craving to know more about her.
For Sigma, I'll start with him before you find out he's Zero Sr. I really liked him, felt like his morals were on point and he was pretty funny. I liked him more right off the bat than I did Junpei. Then you find out you were actually an old ass man the whole time which is crazy! Some of the stuff got funnier, the swimsuit stuff in particular, but I also feel weird about unknowingly playing as an old man the whole time.
Junpei and Akane. This is a biiiiiiiiiiig one. I'll start with Junpei. It's really, really sad that he spent his whole life looking for Akane. I was happy to find out he had a life after though, a life with Quark who he obviously REALLY cared about. The whole concept of "lost love" is something I really get into. When two characters really want to be together but there are things keeping them apart. In this case it was Akane's goals overriding her love for Junpei while he spent his whole life looking for her. At the end of 999 I had this sense of hope that they would find each other and be able to live happily ever after. Kinda foolish in retrospect
. My heart broke when Junpei said, "that's not the Akane I knew." And he was right, it wasn't.
But that all brings me to Akane Kurashiki. Her character is so fascinating, tragic, and frustrating. Gotta say, I was so happy when I found out the old woman was her. Figured there would be some super touching moments with her and Junpei at the end and I might get my happy ending. NOT SO. NOT SO AT ALL. Last night after I finished I was downright pissed off with her. How could she do all this? How could she intentionally let people die when she tried so hard to fight against the people who set up the first Nonary Game? So yeah I was pissed and indignant until I kind of realized I had her entire character wrong. She was never the girl she was portraying herself to be in 999. She was Zero, she was the orchestrated of all of this. But she was also a victim. She had DIED for no reason in the first Nonary Game. After that, she was never going to be the Akane that Junpei knew when they were kids. She was something else completely. Her quest for revenge was justifiable, to say the least.
But then in VLR here she is again, dragging more people in for "the greater good." I think her goals are noble but I will never not think that the greater good people are also kind of crazy. Especially when they're choosing to sacrifice other people for that goal. Especially Clover and Alice, they had their lives essentially stolen from them by Akane. At least at the end they reveal that there may be a way for them to go back to their time with their minds and bodies in tact. But even if she comes across as a heartless monster at times, there was that one line K tells Sigma that she said. Something about how she wishes more than anything she could have gone off with the person she loved but that it just wasn't an hoption for her. Junpei seemed to accept this though. He finally got closure on his end of the story. Akane isn't afforded such a luxury though. Her mind must be so fucked up from all the time jumping. Seeing all of these disasters over and over again, having the relive so much pain.
So stuff I'm still a bit confused on:
1. Who is Phi?
2. How were Phi and Sigma discovered by Akane in the first place?
3. How was Junpei involved in the Mars testing thing?
But yeah amazing game. Definitely liked 999 more, the story it told was way more relatable on an emotional level to me. Thought its' focus was so tight and it was just impeccably told. You were there to save the life of someone who had been so important to you in the past. VLR ratcheted everything up several notches. And by the time the "you have to save the world!" stuff came around I was kinda rolling my eyes like
reeeally?
We're doing another humanity's fate rests in your hands thing? I will say this for VLR, I'm thinking much more intensely about the ending and what it means for the future than I did in 999. 999 took this crazy emotional toll while VLR is really getting my mind working.
