: So as it turns out, there aren’t actually that many cutscenes at all - there’s only like five of them. At this point, I’ve finished YIIK - I did so while recording for this update. There isn’t much left of the game, and it’s 100% cutscenes. I also realized that I hadn’t saved after levelling up, so I did that at the end of the cutscenes. The following cutscene takes place on December 5th.
: “I don’t think it feels real when you say it like that.”
: “I imagine that if Vella were to suddenly become me she would feel very ‘weird’.”
: We call that browsing pornhub where I’m from.
: “Aroused?”
: “I experience every human state.”
: “Okay, moving on.”
: Of course you would, Chris Niosi. Of course you would.
: “That’s when somewhere in a parallel life she is kicking your ass for asking such stupid questions, Alex!”
: “Hahaha! Easy there!”
: “I wonder what I’m like in my parallel lives. I have to say, this parallel life stuff blows. Compared to the concept of past lives, this isn’t very exciting.”
: I hope to god I don’t have any future lives because they’re all going to have to live with the fact that I LPed this pile of shit.
: “If we had past and future lives we would get to be something different in the future. Now I just get to be me and not realize I’m so many other things at the same time.”
: Like, I’m just imagining dying and being put in the Lethe or Styx or whatever and every memory being erased EXCEPT the fact that I LPed this game.
: “Yeah! I could be like you. Except I’ve have more of a personality.”
: There’s a bit more to this cutscene, but I feel like this is a fitting end to it.
: “I will do my best.”
: “Does Mahou Shoujo Haru no Shimai exist in other realities? Am I crazy in thinking that this anime transcends time and space?”
: “Yes.”
: “Damn. I was really hoping it actually was as important to everyone as it is to me.”
: So, I’m guessing this means there are dimensions where everyone is a furry. My guess is that Alex is just a giant talking pile of shit in that dimension.
: “Dating cats? But they’re still sisters, right?”
: “Yes.”
: “Please tell me you’re joking. There is no way that is a thing.”
: “I’m afraid it is.”
: Oh boy, Claudio’s interested in an anime about incestuous lesbians. I hate him.
: “Yeah, it’s nothing.”
: “Ah, okay cool. As long as you’re okay.”
: “Vella is lying.”
: “WHAT!? She just said she was okay! Man, I wish I could get in her mind like you can.”
: “You do not need a pan-dimensional mental link with Vella to see that she is lying.”
: “That’s how it feels sometimes.”
: “I am so happy I left my reality for this one. Even if this one ends, that year I’ve had with you and everyone else was totally worth it.”
: “I couldn’t imagine my life without this reality. Without this Alex. You are so very important.”
: The pic I posted at the end of the last update is what happens if you hit “Ask about kissing”. We’ll just avoid that entirely and end the cutscene here. Alex isn’t getting a fucking kiss on my watch.
: “What’s up?”
: “When the end comes and there is nothing left to do but die, will you leave your body behind and join me in the Soul Space?”
: “You really don’t think we can win, do you?”
: “I am afraid I don’t know either way. I believe we may have a chance. All things are always fifty-fifty. They will either happen, or not happen.”
: I think the word she’s looking for is binary, but whatever.
: “What’s it like to enter the Soul Space? Does it hurt?”
: “You are reduced to pure spirit. Your flesh dissolves, your form dissipates. You will float in space, liberated from corporeal form. You exist with the freedom to travel wherever you please.”
: “You are adrift in the void. It is magical and does not hurt.”
: “So how do I do it?”
: “You must realize how unimportant you are. You must surrender yourself to the Soul Space, and forfeit your right to a physical form.”
: “Agree to give up your lot in physical space, and accept you do not need it. Admit that your physical form is nothing more than a crutch.”
: “I can’t imagine not living like this - eating, drinking, reading, playing games. That’s what life is to me. I understand that there is more, I really do, but I can’t let go of what I’ve been trained to know.”
: “Maybe this is why you’ve never felt the existence of the Soul Space. You have never lost anything. Don’t worry. when the reality around you is obliterated, you will understand loss.”
: “What’s up?”
: “I find it unlikely that she expects you to answer it Alex. Obviously, this question is aimed at either the Essentia 2000 or myself.”
: “So, if each reality is drastically different from each other, what does it mean if two realities share a common concept? Does this make this concept more ‘real’?”
: “First, I should note that there are similarities between each reality, and then there are not. Some realities are strikingly close to one another. For me to answer the question, I will need you to give me a specific example.”
: “Perhaps something more complex than 'If the sun is blue in two realities, does that make it ACTUALLY blue over the suns that are yellow or chicken?”
: I uh, think that’s supposed to be a joke but it doesn’t really make any sense.
: I can say for sure that there is no God, because a loving God would never allow this game to exist. Also, that is way too many words to simply ask “Does God exist?”
: “No. God does exist in some realities. In others, he does not.”
: “So are you saying in some realities God is a present force that you can get direct feedback from?”
: This writing doesn’t sound like a real conversation anyone has ever had.
: “How nicely worded. And yes, that is correct.”
: “So then, if God made all the realities, and yet doesn’t exist in some, does this make God less important? Less omnipotent? If there is a God in one reality and not in another, why would God make a reality that doesn’t have him in it? That seems pretty bogus to me. Almost like the people who get God in their reality are lucky or less lucky, depending on how you look at it.”
: “Who is?”
: “The Essentia 2000, is lying. She doesn’t know if there is a God in another reality. I’ve seen many realities and some do not have the word God or a concept of spirituality. But there is no reality that directly has a God or does not. She can’t know the answer to this question. She is lying.”
: “Now I don’t know what to believe.”
: “There might be a God - there might not be. Don’t let a piece of electronic junk, no offense, tell you what do to.”
: “Okay, if she’s leaving, I’m going to get out of here. Way too many dudes.”
: “Alex, listen to me. Something is seriously wrong here. Can you feel it? It’s in the air. The air is different. The light is different. Everything this reality knows to be true feels wrong. It’s as if everything is in flux. Can you feel it? Alex?”
: “Look man, I’m getting tired. Let’s sleep on that.”
: For that conversation, we get the Flaming Hula Hoop - Chondra’s final weapon - and one final level-up. Now, here’s where this becomes a kick in the dick.
: That cutscene? That’s the last time you can use the “hang out with friends” option. We still have.. 21 days until we can actually progress the plot and get to the end of the game.
: “Day would dawn and I would repeat my alternation of spending time with my friends and honing my powers in the Mind Dungeon.”
: By this he means that I spent the next probably 30 minutes walking to the door, using it to enter the Mind Dungeon, immediately leaving the Mind Dungeon, watching the calendar animation, and repeating. This monologue is one of two cutscenes that breaks that monotony up.
: “It rained a lot last month. December’s uncharacteristically warm, sweaty days only added to the anxiety I was feeling about New Year’s Eve. Aside from the weather, there was hardly anything to distinguish one day from the next.”
: I think what I hate about this the most is that this is the ONE TIME they decided to show, not tell. Probably because it took zero effort to do.
: “Each day we trained, we read the newspapers. We read about deaths, shootings, kidnappings, bombings. I worked at concentrating my attention on the real and useful.”
: Way to acknowledge Columbine a full eight months after it had already happened, dipshit.
: “Even with all my friends with me, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drank, the very air I breathed, would feel like long, sharp needles.”
: I bet this is how he destroys his reality, by being so fucking boring that everyone dies.
: “I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four o’clock in the morning. Christmas was coming. And then in a few days, the world might end. Could I really be the end?”
: “I was starting to love the world so much. All of my friends, my mom, even my sister. Everyone seemed so much more special when I realized how easily they could be lost.”
: “Chimes maybe? A church? I sat up on the bed and felt for my Panda. He was still asleep. He slept more soundly than I did these days.”
: “I sat still and listened hard, but the only sound I could hear was the faint, dry thumping of my own heart.”
: “Months ago, I hated when my heart raced. It either meant I was nervous or I had been forced to exercise against my will.”
: “That’s changed. With all the time I’ve spent training in the Mind Dungeon, everything feels clear. My mind, my muscles, everything was coming into focus. I lived for the moments when I could feel my heartbeat. I became excited for every pump forcing blood through my body.”
: “I felt alive. I was going to hold on to this feeling as long as I could. Where had that music come from? Maybe I had been dreaming, after all.”
: “I thought back to earlier in the summer. I used to dream all the time, but lately my dreams were fevered and confused. I missed when I dreamed of the Essentia 2000. I wondered where she was?”
: “Where did she go at night? Why didn’t she ever stay with me? Where do transdimensional androids go at night?”
: I don’t really have much to say here. Just know that as I’m working on this update, I’m just muttering “fuck” and “shut up” a lot.
: “4:00 AM.”
: “What’s wrong? Is the house on fire?”
: “No. Where do you think the Essentia 2000 goes at night?”
: The good news is, we’re actually almost done! There’s this cutscene, two more, and then we’re out.
: “Probably to stay over a hotter guy’s house. yawn”
: “You think so? Think she has an android boyfriend out there somewhere?”
: Why am I not surprised that Fuckhead here only really gives a shit because he might not be able to fuck the robot?
: “Wow, I can’t believe another year is almost over.”
: “Don’t remind me.”
: “So, are we going to do gifts or what!?”
: So much for him not giving a shit about material things anymore.
: “Where is the Essentia 2000?”
: “I guess she isn’t much of a holiday person.”
: This would give me a perfect goddamn segue into something I really want to talk about, but I’ll have to do that.. actually, I’ll let you decide.
: “Sure, why not.”
: “For Christmas 1996, my mother got my dad a computer. It was a really good one too.”
: Who the fuck says “mother” but then says “dad”? Who does that?
: “He used to do all of his writing on a word processor. The ones with the really tiny screen where you could see seven or eight lines max.”
: “So anyway, my dad unboxes it and freaks out. He was so excited! And you know, I fell in love with it right away. Whenever my dad left the house, I’d get on the computer and play games, browse the internet.”
: I also fail to see how this is a Christmas story, but then again this game is called YIIK and has absolutely fuck all to do with the Y2K “bug”.
: “I made a friend online. Together, we founded ONISM 1999. Now, you want to hear the really funny part? When I went and lived all of my parallel lives, I was him. I was on a computer, talking to me.”
: There is absolutely nothing funny about that statement.
: “Now tell me, how the hell can a computer connect to a chatroom that is in another reality? Something is screwed up here, guys.”
: That’s all you’ve fucking been saying since you took your shirt off, you dipshit!
: “Dude, this might be our last Christmas together or ever! And you want to waste it talking about this?”
: Typo/grammar count is now well into the double-digits. I’m typing out the dialogue exactly as it appears.
: “You guys have to tell me you’ve noticed it too. Do you honestly feel like things are the same as they were two months ago? Two years ago?”
: I feel like Alex should go get his record player and beat Michael over the head with it because he’s a broken goddamn record.
: “Dude, things change. That’s li–”
: Clearly, Michael was walking in high cotton. Those fertile fields are never far away.
: “Things are so different.”
: “Can you give us an example, Michael?”
: Well, I think today if a group of middle-aged white guys were going to get in a vehicle to sing about cotton they’d probably use a truck with two of them sitting in the bed to boost their “country cred”.
: “Okay, why the hell haven’t any of you asked what the Entities were doing driving the android around!?”
: This is a question that never gets answered.
: “So what, we save her and just forget about it? Why was she in a van in the first place? Vella, you said it yourself. Soul Survivors DO NOT kidnap people. They didn’t kidnap Sammy and they didn’t take the Essentia hostage.”
: I don’t get if he’s saying that the robot is wrong about Sammy kidnapping herself or what, but none of this is ever going to get answered.
: “They – sigh. Look, we just need to find the Essentia 2000 and ask her how her body ended up in the van. It’s that simple! Let’s finish opening up gifts. Tomorrow, we can sort this out.”
: “Something was wrong and I couldn’t place my finger on it. I wondered if this was how people with dying family members felt - this sense of dread. But, it wasn’t a sense of dread I was feeling.”
: “It was a loss of self, a complete dissolve of everything I had ever known, the only thing that was a step beyond death.”
: “A complete dissolve”? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
: “When people die, reality - the color of the sky, the sound of the trees, your memories - all remain the same. This was different. This was beyond unusual.”
: We then have to manually skip ahead five days. I honestly don’t know why they give you so much time: even if you hadn’t done ANY of the sidequests, you could do those and hit all the cutscenes well before the time is up.
: This next sequence consists of answering the phone, taking a few steps, then having to answer the phone again.
: “Who is this?”
: “Have you been taking care of my cat?”
: “Sammy!? WHERE ARE YOU!?”
: “Dad?”
: “Dad!!!”
: “What is ‘go screw yourself’?”
: “Did you remember to pick up my cat from the dry cleaners?”
: This is another reference to Two Brothers. Fuck you, Allanson.
: “I’ve had the weirdest dreams. I’ve been dreaming that I’m a boy. Dreaming that I’m a boy. That dreaming boy I’m a. A I’m that boy dreaming. Isn’t that funny?”
: “Have you seen my hula hoop or my headphones? Also, I’ve been thinking of changing my hair. It’s getting so big.”
: “I’M STUCK IN THE MIND DUNGEON!!! WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?!”
: “MICHAEL!!!”
: “I can’t find you. Where did you go? You left me at the elevator and you vanished into the crowd.”
: “Why do you always disappear on me like that!? YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I HATE THAT!!”
: “I don’t even know. Didn’t I dream that? Man, I wish I dreamed that.”
: “Talk it out. Why do you think you were getting all those strange calls?”
: “I have no idea, but Panda, have you noticed how weird things have been?”
: “You mean with all the soul survivors, androids, and long haired punk kids you’ve been rolling with lately?”
: “No, even before that.”
: “When do you think it started?”
: “Well, I guess around the time I came home from school, for starters. And I know this could just be a coincidence, but I didn’t see my mom for weeks.”
: It’s like they’re trying to do the thing like in Futurama where if you watch the first episode closely you can see Fry push himself into the cryo chamber, only they didn’t plan any of it in advance and are now in a massive cover-their-ass spree to try and explain why this game doesn’t have a plot.
: “Mostly normal.”
: “No, it wasn’t. Something is weird. Where’s my dad been? Don’t you remember?”
: Did the Allansons forget that his dad ran away when he was a kid?
: “My dad worked for Pacific Chime, not my mom. No, my mom worked for Moon Macrosystems. They met at that programming convention. When did mom start working for Pacific Chime?”
: This part in particular feels like they were trying to go for the whole Dark City/Matrix style “guy breaks himself out of the Matrix by thinking too hard” bit but it just doesn’t work.
: “Yeah, I do. Of course I do. Everyone has a dad.”
: “Then where is he?”
: “He’s-- and then Michael. When did Michael move back to Frankton?”
: “Didn’t Michael move away when he was ten?”
: “When did he move away?”
: “He was a few years younger than me but I never felt like there was much of an age gap when we hung out. The summer he moved to town we spent a lot of time together.”
: “That was back when my sister and I would spend the days outside until the sun went down, counting the accomplishments of those summer days based on the number of mosquito bites and caught fireflies.”
: I’d reassure you and say that this is among the last monologues in the game, but really about 90% of the rest of the game is going to be Alex talking to himself. Also, shut the fuck up Alex you fucking suck.
: “Michael had moved to the area when he was twelve. 1991. The year Michael Stipe of REM sang ‘Losing My Religion’. It was a peaceful green street at the time, not a single thing to claim your attention. A handful of little white houses with a few fences, a stream full of crayfish, a two lane road they pretended was a highway, barely a yawn of a shopping center.”
: “That was it. Most houses had maple trees planted in the yard and brand new not-yet-beaten fences. And there were those giant billboards advertising the mall they’d be building right off of 82.”
: Those.. those statements don’t line up at all.
: “The house he moved into was a mid-century model-style built sometime around the late '80s.”
: Who the fuck cares? Who the fuck even gives a shit what kind of house he lives in? WE’VE SEEN IT!
: “The exterior, painted in three shades of green, had faded handsomely in the sun and wind and rain to blend in perfectly with the surrounding countryside. There was a huge yard and in it several stands of trees and a small pond.”
: SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT UP! GOD DAMMIT SHUT UP ABOUT HIS STUPID FUCKING HOUSE!
: He just keeps on fucking talking! It’s like this fuckhead read one of those CIA torture handbooks and is just fucking following it to a T. I’m pretty sure this game can be classed as a crime against humanity.
: “Its bay windows hung with lace curtains faded to a nondescript color. Down by the pond, daffodils were in riotous bloom and every morning birds came to bathe. The first owner of the house, also its designer, had been an elderly oil painter, but his lungs gave out on him and he died the winter before Michael moved in.”
: This is seriously like one of those Grandpa Simpson stories straight out of the show before The Simpsons turned to shit, only it’s not funny.
: “That was in 1990, the year Billy Joel sang ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’. Michael was my best friend until I was – didn’t he move when I was 12? When did he move back to Frankton?”
: You know what? Alex is just like Billy Joel. Billy Joel is most famous for making a song that is just him reading off a list and also no one can name a single one of his songs that isn’t We Didn’t Start the Fire or Piano Man. God I suck at analogies right now. YIIK does that to you.
: “Didn’t they move to Canada when his dad got that publishing deal?”
: “He sold his house, right? didn’t a cute girl move in there?”
: “Come to think of it, didn’t you and Michael have a falling out? He moved away, you went to hang out with him and he had given you the wrong address or something like that?”
: “Yeah, sort of. He had me meet him at a mall near his house and when I got there, he never showed up. That was the last I heard of him.”
: “You should go ask him.”
: “What time is it? It’s dark outside.”
: This is the last scene we’ll see that isn’t part of one of the game’s two.. well, sorta three, I guess.. endings. As soon as Alex leaves the house, he has two choices: he could go to New York City for the new year with his friends - or he could keep on his overly creepy hunt for the dead girl as if nothing ever happened. We’ll call the first one Ending A and the second one Ending B.
Please place your votes for Ending A or Ending B - though what we’ll be seeing first is an ending that isn’t either of those. You’ll see what I mean.