: “However, while I am with you, nothing bad can ever happen. I am here to protect you.”
: So, the entire reason that Essentia is here kind of doesn’t make any sense. In fact, there’s a pretty good reason (as we’ll see shortly) that putting a bullet through his head would be a better option for everyone.
: “I think I need you to answer some more questions. I’m really confused. Why did this Japanese guy know me? Why did he attack me? What did I ever do to him?”
: “I can only deduce an answer based on the information I have. This information is the same information that you have, so these are simply educated guesses based on my own personal bias.”
: “Okay, fine. What do you think it is?”
: “I think it would be a safe assumption that in a parallel life, you have harmed me. That this Yuzu Imajo had some sort of relationship with you and you hurt him in some way.”
: Wait a second, what? Yuzu never said his name.
: “When he saw you, he recognized something in your soul and became angry. This is why he attacked.”
: Is this like that reboot of Prey where people inject Alex neurons into themselves to gain douchebag powers, but everyone can tell that you’ve got alien stuff in your head?
: “I harmed him in a parallel life? I harmed you?”
: “There are times where someone expresses how they have been harmed, and as humans our immediate reaction is to become defensive. In our defense so that we do not harm others, we become offensive.”
: This is another one of those things where it really, really does not sound good after all that stuff about Chris Niosi came out.
: “It is in these moments where we decide what type of human we will be. Which is worse: to harm someone in the past and continue to harm them by justifying your past actions, or harming someone in the past and accepting that your choices hurt them?”
: Keep this in mind, because it is going to be relevant immediately after we escape this stupid dungeon.
: “Yes, you might feel harmed in the process by admitting your mistakes, but this is a good type of pain. Pain that heals you into a better person is always better than the small pain of accepting you are wrong.”
: What the hell kind of writing is this?
: “Did I always deny I harmed someone? Do I always feel the need to justify my actions?”
: Well, yeah. I mean, really this is true both in and out of the game.
: “Maybe. Yes. I totally did.”
: Clearly, this isn’t a sentiment shared by the developers.
: Yeah, like hiring a fucking proofreader to fix all these spelling and grammar errors.
: “There are moments when I understand intellectually how I must act, but then something happens. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, like a warm light in the distance, an idea forms - a completely human, flawed, and kind intentioned idea something that all versions of me know to be a mistake.”
: Things like making this game.
: However, the overwhelming feeling of doing the ‘right thing’ takes over and I am forced to make a choice. And every time, this version of me chooses the kind path. I cannot allow any harm to come to you."
: Gee, this doesn’t sound at all like an abusive relationship, sort of like the ones Chris Niosi had.
: “So just remember: It’s not important, Alex, to worry about what we will accomplish. Somewhere out there, we have both accomplished and failed at all tasks. Take solace in this.”
: I hope that there’s a dimension where this game never existed, and I wish I was in it.
: “There exist perfect versions of us who didn’t fail or harm others. Just keep working as hard as you can and you’ll be able to be that perfect version of yourself.”
: So, uh, this advice is total fucking bullshit. This is basically the Jungian idea of the “true self” - it’s a concept that gets brought up a lot in Persona 4 to the point where the title screen track is called “Pursuing My True Self”. The only thing is, Jung himself admitted that actually attaining the true self was impossible.
: “So should I feel guilty that I harmed him in a parallel life?”
: “That question is irrelevant. Just acknowledge that the part of you that harmed him exists in all humans. And then work to polish the blemish on your soul that had led to that action.”
: I feel like they really did not handle this whole parallel dimension thing well at all. It would’ve been one thing if they had done it where you see the parallel Alex doing whatever it is he did to Yuzu - but you don’t. It also is really hard to have an impact when it’s basically “Well, some other version of you - who isn’t even necessarily physically or mentally anything like you and who you can never meet - did something horrible at one point.”
: “Wait, I have one more question. Did – did I harm any of the other women we met, the ones who are also you? Oda, Naila, Serna, Vella?”
: I had been suspecting for some time that there was going to be a really dumb plot twist where the guy who abused Vella was an alternate version of Alex. At this point during recording, I said to myself “How much do I want to bet that every single one of them was harmed by a parallel Alex?”
: “Looking at her, I thought of a satellite floating in space - a drifting piece of man-made material, traveling through a place man can barely go.”
: “What I had said was out of pure curiosity. I had no way of knowing with any certainty that I had harmed any of these women. My words, though, seemed to have jabbed at something in there. I could read the effect on her face. Eventually, without a word, the Essentia 2000 turned away and proceeded from the room.”
: As you can probably tell, the answer is absolutely yes.
: “There is one last location I would like to show you, and it’s quite a distance. I will answer more questions when we get there.”
: “I longed to wash away the bitter taste in my mouth. But even sipping from a water bottle wouldn’t cleanse me of it. The whole situation felt like a dream, as if I was wading through pools of jello.”
: You’d think Alex would learn to just shut the fuck up by now.
: “Even then I kept telling myself that the things around me weren’t ‘that weird’. That seeing Sammy vanish, meeting entities, and entering inside a dungeon in my mind should have prepared me for this. But you know, I don’t think it did.”
: “I wanted to ask the Essentia 2000 if I could feel the feelings of my parallel lives. I realize now that I was just seeking an explanation for the various feelings that were surging through my heart.”
: “I felt closer to Vella, closer to – well, every single parallel life of the Essentia 2000, and yet furthest from Sammy.”
: Wait.. what? Why do you even still care about Sammy? She’s fucking dead. The robot just told you that she committed soul suicide and that she’s gone forever.
: “Did I really ever want to find her now that I know what ‘finding her’ actually meant? No, I did. I really did.”
: “Those stairs were the exit to my Mind Dungeon. Now we have returned to the foyer. In order to proceed, we must first return to the beginning. Allow me to open your mind, to grant you access to the Hall of Parallel Lives.”
: “Inside are the various parallel lives that your soul is currently engaged in.”
: And I believe it would be a good idea to HIRE A GODDAMN PROOFREADER!
: “Our destination is at the far end of this hall. That room is used to chronicle the past and future of this Alex, the one I am speaking to now, my favorite.”
: “Why aren’t I here?”
: The dumb thing is that from his perspective, he should be able to see where he is. It’s hard to make out, but notice how there’s a body-shaped outline on that big red disc in the background?
: “You are, and you are speaking. What I’m about to show you is something that lies at the heart of all of your selves. Please, prepare yourself for a harsh amount of bitter truth. What you are about to see cannot be unseen.”
: Okay, let’s see, bitter truth: this game sucks. It wasted all of its potential in the first ten minutes and never recovered. The story sucks, the combat is laughably broken, the writing is godawful, there’s typos everywhere. The Allanson brothers should be banned from all major game stores for plagiarism.
: “Should I be worried?”
: “No. Not if you took to heart what I have taught you.”
: Fuck you, Alex! I’m the only one who gets to shut my brain off during these pointless fucking cutscenes!
: “To recognize your flaws and work to correct them. I am about to show you your greatest flaw of all. Destruction.”
: Now we can go up and inspect the disc, and..
: “In a way, it is everyone’s flaw. Destruction. To be destruction, or to be creation. We can only be one in the end.”
: “But what will I destroy?”
: Pffft… there’s no way. Alex is such an unimportant fuckwad. Is there a term that’s like, the opposite of a mary sue? Where the character has literally no redeeming qualities whatsoever, but they’re not supposed to be the villain?
: “How could I destroy a reality? What powers do I have that could lead to this type of devastation!?”
: “Inaction is just as much an act of aggression as taking up arms.”
: Someone should tell that to Rory. Let’s make a note to do that as soon as we get back.
: “When will this happen? How will I do this?”
: “I do not know. But what’s important is that it hasn’t happened yet and --”
: “Wait, you’re saying we can still stop this?”
: “All realities cease to exist. The only thing you get to decide is if you aid in the destruction or fight against it.”
: “Fight against it? But you said it was doomed! NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE!”
: “This reality will fade away, and another will take its place. But this doesn’t mean that you can’t prevent the loss of future realities.”
: “How would I do that if we all die!?”
: You know what would’ve been perfect for Alex to reference right here? No wait, let me do it.
: So what Essentia’s saying is that it’s closing time? That every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end? That you don’t have to go home (even though it’s going to be destroyed) but you can’t stay here? That song’s actually from 1999, by the way. I remember when it was still on the radio. Suck it, Allanson! This is what, the third time I’ve done that? I feel like it gets better every time.
: “We can take your friends with us. Together, we will protect realities from the ultimate loss - loss of souls who perish with worldly attachments in their hearts. When a soul is bound to the planet by thoughts and obsessions of worldly things, they die with the reality.”
: What a great idea. Let’s send Fuckface, Destroyer of Worlds into different realities so he can teach everyone some kind of fucked-up cyber-buddhism and then it’s just Jonestown on a dimensional scale. Great idea!
: “But I want to save this reality. What about my mother, my friends? I couldn’t just convince them to enter the Soul Space. I don’t even think I could convince my mother that there IS a Soul Space.”
: “What do you want to do, Alex? Whatever you decide, I am with you every step of the way.”
: “But wait, why is this – why is this my choice?”
: “Because this is your reality, not mine. I just want you to be happy.”
: “Essentia, how do you know me? Why do you care so much about me?”
: “Because you have been in all of my lives. And at every turn, I have been there for you, even when you have harmed me. I have always loved you. I would fight a losing battle for you.”
: “I-- what do I even say to that?”
: I feel like “helped” is kind of a strong word here, given that Alex basically sat in an elevator pissing himself while Sammy got taken by.. well, by herself. Now, are you ready for the fucking stinger? Well, the first fucking stinger. There will be another at the end of this update.
: I don’t normally include mailbag updates in the regular LP, but even better, the entire reason Vella killed herself was BECAUSE OF ALEX!
: “Shh. Alex, regardless of how much you have harmed me in any of my parallel lives, I am always here for you. I want to help you be the best you can be.”
: This doesn’t feel like unconditional love. This feels like a fucking hostage situation. This feels like those stories I hear about people who get abused by a partner and won’t leave the relationship.
: “Can’t you help me be the me that saves this reality? From whatever the hell all those things are falling from the sky?”
: “It is impossible. But if you could like to try, we may try.”
: I remember reading an interview someone did with Yoko Taro in regards to Drakengard. This is the first one mind you, not 2 or 3. I remember that the interviewer asked him why it was that all of the endings to Drakengard were bad endings - the protagonist dies in all of them. Yoko Taro replied that it was because he felt that Caim (the protagonist) didn’t deserve a good ending.
: Now, Caim was a murderous bastard, but the way the world in Drakengard is portrayed, there are virtually zero people in that game who aren’t assholes of a caliber equal to or greater than Caim. I feel like Alex is worse than most of the characters in Drakengard in a lot of ways. He doesn’t deserve a good ending. Something tells me that the Allansons were not at all aware of this and he’s going to get one anyway.
: “But how do you KNOW it’s impossible?”
: “I can feel the reality breaking apart. I can feel souls fleeing in every direction. This world will soon end.”
: “But there has to be something we can do - some way to be strong enough to take down whatever is going to destroy this reality!”
: “But what about me, Vella, you, and the others?”
: “It pleases me that you want to fight for something. I know this isn’t your usual way. It thrills me to see the passion in you.”
: “Together, we can attempt to fight this ender of realities. Just know, we will fail, but we will fail together.”
: “Don’t be such a downer. If I’m going to die, I at least want to go down swinging. What other choice do I have?”
: “I understand now that in your heart, there is no other choice. Perhaps you, Alex, are different from the others. I will stay and fight with you. But if we are going to do this, we must convince your friends to help us and we must train. Even I am not at my most powerful.”
: “We must complete the Mind Dungeon before the end comes and be prepared to fight it.”
: “How do we convince them that the world is going to end?”
: “By convincing them that this reality will soon perish and by making them understand that this world is just a byproduct of that destruction.”
: “Okay, so what’s this great destruction that will be obliterating reality?”
: “It’s the same destruction that destroys all realities. And yet, I can’t give it a name. But when you see it, you will recognize it.”
: “I think I want to go home now. Everyone is probably wondering where I went.”
: “Yes, we’ve been gone quite a while.”
: “Really? How long?”
: “I’m not sure. Maybe we can take a bus?”
: I’m going to skip the rest of this pointless conversation (it’s only a couple of lines about “America has no mass transit”) and get to what I’ve been wanting to get to for a while. Also, it’s now apparently December despite the fact that Alex was only gone for 5 days.
: The fastest way back to Frankton is via Flag Town. There’s a couple of random encounters on the way, but you can imagine how those went. I managed to level Alex up to 41 and got his strength to 88. I’ll find out how much damage that makes LP Toss do at some point.
: “ALEX!!! WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN!!?? I WAS SO WORRIED!!”
: Holy fucking punctuation.
: “Missing!? You reported me missing!?”
: “I haven’t seen you for days, and none of your friends knew where you were!”
: “Hey, I’m sorry. I, uhm–”
: “I’m sorry, Mrs. Eggleston. Alex was with me. My car broke down and he was kind enough to walk with me to the auto body shop and help me out.”
: Very believable excuse for why he was gone for over 5 days.
: “He’s been with me and has been perfectly safe.”
: “Who are you? Why is your hair green? Alex, why are you hanging out with a woman with green hair?”
: “Mom, that’s the latest fashion. Everyone does it. It’s the 90s. Multicolored hair is the bomb, or whatever.”
: “Yes, my hair is the bomb.”
: I get that the cop is probably a Reno 911 reference, but he looks like Mike Dawson.
: “That’s awesome!! What are you doing?”
: “Basically, I’m rebranding all their products as Y2K compatible, and selling them for twice the cost.”
: She then goes on a long spiel about what Y2K is. I should think everyone who has read the LP would know what it is.
: “I’m sorry, I could not resist.”
: “Okay, so you do have a sense of humor. I wasn’t sure if being part android took out the fun parts of a personality.”
: “I can be very funny. Would you like to hear my stand up routine?”
: “What? Really? Now? The world is going to end, this is no time for jokes!”
: I hope you’re ready for the worst excuse for a joke I have ever seen.
: “We should begin by asking your friends to join us. Although there is a possibility that they may be smart enough to enter the Soul Space before the end.”
: “Do you really think they’d do that?”
: “It is a possibility.”
: “Okay, if we’re going to do this, I need you to stop reminding me that you think this is a lost cause. I’m determined to try and stop this - whatever it is!”
: “Okay, I am sorry. I did not mean to upset you. I am here to help you with whatever you need. I think it would be wise for me to speak with Vella alone as we are one and the same. Perhaps you should call her and arrange a meeting.”
: Let’s do just that, because it’s time for me to end this update with the second plot bombshell we’re going to see.
: Now, this will go just fine. I mean, Alex was gone for almost a week but it’s not like anything drastic could possibly have occurred. I am going to go pure screenshots for this part because I need you all to know that I am not making this shit up.
: …what? How could this.. well, actually, I could see exactly how it could happen. But wait..
: Wait, what? Why did it just go back to.. Chapter 4.1? What is this shit, Earth Defense Force?
: “No.. it can’t be. I remember what we did that night. How could I forget? He came up, and asked me..”
: "Yeah, that’s right! He asked me if we could talk, so we went to Burger Joint and he told me how he was feeling.
: “I probably wouldn’t have remembered it normally, but I remember trying to kiss him. It was weird, but I just.. felt the need to do it.”
: Oh my god, is this doing what I think it’s doing?
: I can’t convey this in screenshot form, but the game automatically selects the second option.
: "WAIT, WHAT?! I NEVER SAID THAT!!! I never, ever said that! We went to Burger Joint, talked it out, and I tried to kiss him! That’s what happened!
: “Alex, that’s not what Rory told me. I talked to him on the way home from the mall, after you went missing in that stupid van. He told me that you told him to fuck off and take his bullshit with him. He even said you threatened to hit him if he told anyone else.”
: Holy fuck. This is.. wow. I mean, it’s basically ripped straight from Silent Hill 2, but god DAMN. I wonder if they added this in with one of those patches after the plagiarism accusations.
: “You might not have actually pushed him off the water tower, but you may as well have. Tell me, Alex. Why did you do it? You knew he was depressed. You KNEW he was reaching out to you for help! Why didn’t you help him?”
: I mean, they didn’t exactly keep Vella’s characterization the same but that’s to be expected since the Allansons can’t write for shit. I wonder if they had someone else write this for them? Who would even volunteer to do that?
: “And another thing. I talked to Michael, and he says there’s someone on ONISM who found a video of you following Semi Pak into that elevator. Only, there was no elevator, just an open elevator shaft. I didn’t believe you could do it. Michael didn’t believe you could do it.”
: “But I know the truth now. You pushed Semi Pak into that elevator shaft. I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to believe you could do it, but..”
: GODDAMN! This game just took a fucking 180-degree turn. I mean, it’s not great, but compared to the rest of this pile of shit it’s fucking amazing!
: “I didn’t do anything! I tried to save her!!! Are you saying that you think I killed her?!?! Vella, that’s insane!!! The Soul Survivors did it, not me!!”
: “Alex, you did it. I don’t know what you did with her body, but the police are going to find it. And what do you think they’re going to find on it, Alex? They’re going to find your fingerprints and your clothing fibers all over her body.”
: “Vella, you have to believe me!! I DIDN’T KILL SEMI, YOU STUPID FUCKING BITCH!!”
KNOCK KNOCK
: “Alex Eggleston, are you in there? This is the Frankton PD! Open the door! We have a warrant for your arrest in conjunction with the murder of Semi Pak! Open the door now, and come out with your hands above your head!”
: I couldn’t capture it, but there’s a black screen and then you can hear a door being forced open, then a gunshot. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be the cops shooting Alex, or Alex killing himself. God damn, that was one incredible way to end this game. Is this that “third ending” people kept talking about?
: Well, I guess this is the end of this LP. I’d like to thank everyone for reading. I’ll probably do Police Quest 3 next since as far as I know, no one’s ever done it, and then I’ll move on to Ni no Kuni 1 when that gets re-released next month. This is probably the best ending to a trash game I’ve ever seen.
: At least.. that’s how I would’ve ended it. Unfortunately, I’m not the first person to do a complete LP of this game, so pulling something like that is easily disproven. Next time, we’ll see the rest of the suicide scene. Before I go though, people who have watched the second LP will know that something else isn’t kosher here, so let me explain.
: Remember that scene I just flashed back to with Rory at the radio station? If you do what we did in the LP - even if you try to kiss him - Rory doesn’t die and that scene doesn’t play. What I actually did was recorded an entire second run of that area just to do that scene the other way, which is now the canon run for this LP. I got spoiled on this while looking up how to finish that stupid part where we had to talk to everyone in Frankton before heading off to the mall.
: Surprisingly (or not) whether Rory lives or dies has almost zero impact on the game. I don’t think he has any more lines even if he lives (not that I’d know) and has zero impact on which ending you get. I don’t know what the endings ARE, just that Rory has nothing to do with them. The game treats his death as so unimportant that the scene that plays if he DOESN’T die plays immediately after the call about his death as if nothing even happened. We’ll see that next time.