Fifth and last route, folks! The Joker Route was my
second favourite after the Diamond Route and an interesting conclusion to the
overarching storyline of Amnesia:Memories. Orion's initial collision
with my character's brain was justified in a rather convincing way, as well as
all of Ukyo's seemingly random actions and weird declarations in the four other
routes. If not for the uncanny amount of babbling and superfluous rehashing of
the other routes' themes (I was vomiting the whole "childhood
friends/big brother" drill with Toma and Shin at that point, I swear), the
Joker Route could actually have been my favourite route of the whole game. Oh,
well.
My exploration of the Joker Route led me first to its ridiculously numerous bad
endings. We're talking about seven bad endings there, people, and I uncovered
all of them first thing. Six of them belong to the 'branching path' category
and can be smelled from afar; of course, I had to see what they had in store
for me, and I jumped into the lion's den with some giddy masochistic
satisfaction. Oh, the fun of being killed in a million different ways! I was
murdered by Ukyo, kidnapped by Toma, crushed to death, burned alive and so on,
in a deliciously gruesome display of bad luck. The seventh bad ending is tied
to the Parameters and happens if the Trust and Affection Gauge are not filled
enough after the other six bad endings have been successfully dodged. This was
the last bad ending I uncovered; and after witnessing that most entertaining
collection of grisly outcomes, I started hunting for the better endings in
earnest.
During my first 'bad endings special' run, I had tried
my hardest to convey my love to Ukyo and had been very demonstrative to him,
forcing my attentions and my presence on him as much as the dialogue choices
allowed me to do, only to get stranded in the ultimate seventh bad ending after
dodging the other six. I then started a second run in which I tried to be more
compliant and to go along with Ukyo's wishes. His main demand throughout the
whole route was that I kept my distance from him, and I did exactly that while
still being kind to him when we interacted. This behaviour paid off and I was
rewarded by the normal ending, leaving me just one ending away from sweet,
sweet completion.
I must insert a disclaimer here; although I unearthed that ultimate good ending
all by myself, I have to admit that I didn't manage to pinpoint the exact
requirements for uncovering it. My winning strategy involved uncovering all the
memories from other worlds involving Ukyo and dodging the memories from the
Joker Route involving anybody else while simultaneously trying to max up the
Trust and Affection Gauges. My reasoning was that if I managed to avoid all
memories of the Joker world until the scripted event that would trigger the
memory of my encounter with Ukyo in that world, then Orion would not separate
from me and would be able to save the day, leading me straight to the good
ending. It turned out that this reasoning was unvalid and that Orion being
kicked out of my consciousness was actually a scripted event as well; yet my
strategy ultimately paid off and generated the good ending. Since I had reached
completion at long last, I didn't play a test run in which I could have checked
the validity of my hypothesis regarding the requirements for the good ending,
for instance by triggering memories of the Joker world involving other persons
than Ukyo. That is why to this day, I don't know if the good ending is tied to
the Parameters, to the recovering of the memories of Ukyo from other worlds or
to a mix of both. Well, that question will have to linger unanswered until my
next playthrough of Amnesia:Memories.
If there is a next playthrough, that is. Although I will certainly not erase the game now that I've forked out some cold hard cash to purchase it, the inherent lack of replay value of visual novels may prevent me from ever replaying it. That doesn't diminish the game's merits in any way, though: this was an excellent gameplay experience and a really fun ride. I've been pondering whether or not Amnesia: Memories was intended as a deadpan parody of otome games. The game's assiduity when it comes to offering bad endings by the truckload and its zeal to craft entirely unlikeable bachelors—well-intentioned guys treating you like shit or psychos treating you amorously, pick your poison!—certainly comes across as humorous, but that may just be my own penchant for dark humour and satire speaking. At any rate, I want to play more visual novels with an otome flavour, which is why I ordered Norn9: Var Commons and Code:Realize just after clearing Amnesia:Memories. If you know other good visual novels with an otome touch, feel free to fill me in! Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!
2 comments:
Kumiko 24 November 2015 at 13:25
Congrats on
finishing your first otome game, I'm glad you enjoyed it so much. I can't tell
you much about the titles you've ordered since I haven't played them myself,
although I have heard very good things about Code's plot.
As for other recommendations, there's sweet fuse for the PSP. The art isn't as
pretty, but the plot is both very mysterious and amusing. It's about a group of
people who are in the middle of a terrorist attack on an amusement park and
must play some difficult games at the villian's whim in other to save the other
hostages. It costs less than 10 euros on the PSN, so if it turns out it's not
your thing it's not a big loss. My one complaint is that the true route is
unlocked after only one playthrough, and it's very easy to fall into it by
accident before you finish the other routes, which is no fun and kills the
mystery. The characters aren't nearly as dickish as in Amnesia though.
Isleif 25 November 2015 at 10:18
Thank you! This
first excursion into the otome world was definitely more entertaining than I
expected.
I just bought Sweet Fuse on the PSN! I had always shied away from it because of
its otome elements, but there's no need to avoid it anymore now that I know I
can enjoy the genre. Hopefully I will like it!
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