A wonderfully original game bogged down in just about every way by story and gameplay gimmicks meant to waste your time. Whether it be the repetitive combat, flawed deconstruction of endings all the way to the try hard story telling that video game developers could never reach at making a trully intelligent point about existence with. Even within the confines of video games, the people who worked on this are able to resoundingly use many elements that reside only with video games to make the viewer care about the characters and make a point that most developers can't. The horrible structure of just about every gameplay idea didn't stop me from loving this. Only the Japanese could take a convoluted story that is in actuality saying the most basic shit ever....and make you care through the characters, overt genuine emotion, and post-ironic engagement even within a story we've seen many times in anime/square enix games and a dull open world more in service for the story than developed gameplay. They take everything happening very seriously and the shifting between identities, lives, perspectives, story telling ideas/concepts, and gameplay styles makes the viewer engage with the game in a post-modern but also a genuine emotional way. The shift of 3rd person to 1st person narrative structure and even completely detaching the viewer from the story into new vessels works but also "fails" at key points. And this failure is what heightens the game.

Its all daring choices and Taro adds his own originality into what would be another run of the mill RPG. What fucking game would try any of this? What story teller could do this with a film or even a book? Very few pieces of art try to engage the viewer not only in a maximalist sense with the text and in a minimalist way with how a work is constructed in its limited range, but also to tell a story (of violence) from all sides deconstructing bias. Few examples come up with books like Infinite Jest and to a lesser extent with the The Bell Jar, where the text grows with ones application and knowledge of the reality the author lived. Here Taro tries to engage us with the lives the characters live by making us care about memory the same say the characters do. With extreme repetition, devotion to deconstructing endings, and in the ultimate twist we care about our memory (literal and figurative) with the game. We have essentially played as 9S trying to save the memory of who he loved. We have fully engaged with the text at this point. Now, films have tried this whether it be Alain Resnais with Last Year at Marienbad where we must relfect on our own memory and perspective in order to understand the text. Or even directors like Jean Renoir looking at social structures during war and brutality that exist within what our perspective is during war wether rich or poor, soldier or elite. But only video games could make this "failure" in storytelling work how Toro does here. He almost detaches us from how a game is supposed to work wether it be the endings or construction of killing enemies mindlessly. The gameplay being repetitive works in service with the story. Even the characters repeat how the cycle of violence is getting tiring and even the fact they see each other die so much straight from the beginning of the game reflects this. And this is all to say that the gameplay isn't horrible and I often had a hell of a lot of fun, but still many issues remain such as 9S' focus on hacking mini games and just spamming X.

The story construction itself reminds me of the melodramas from the 50s like All That Heaven Allows where to a modern eye the film is overly dramatic and unrealistic...but this is what I love and why I engage with the emotion the way I do. This isn't new, where viewers engage with the unreality of a world created in art thats meant more for emotion or philosophy than so much as realism. Anime and video game stories ask us to do this all the time. Its one of the best films I've seen but its "bad". "Bad" as in its technically poorly acted right cause its melodrama. The acting and style makes a modern viewer detach. Its then, when you either go along with the work or don't take it seriously, but thats the point. Similar to this game, you either laugh it all off, all the sexualization and crazy ideas or you go with it. It feels bizarrely too genuine. The people who hate that film I think are cynical and have no spirituality, only dealing with the text materially. It adds a lot to that movie and this game. If it was more supposedly "cohesive" as someone might say, that would be implying when they made it they weren't being genuine with the final product...but they were. Sure its "bad storytelling and characterization" but its form and genuineness to melodrama makes it its own reality. Taro gives us this option to opt out of engaging with his work, even questions us "isn't this just a game to you?" to paraphrase, or the many bait and switch endings which are meant to confuse and obfuscate. Baiting us into deleting our save file...because of course you wouldn't right its a game that you played for hours. Taro knows now that we have engaged with the drama and that we have engaged with how much we care about our time, thus engaging with the text itself on a literal level but also within the text itself. Are you willing to nuke your save data? Your 70 or 100 hours of gameplay spent with these characters? And its this that got me so mad by the end of my first playthrough...where all my 30 hours were gone to waste since I would have to play the whole game all over again just to see the rest of the game...almost as if they were reusing assets to increase the length of the game...but here Toro does another genius move. The repetition is in service with the game not against it. Moments are given different points of view with the random cut ins from other robots stories. Everything is recontextualized. The gameplay, story, themes, etc are all recontextualized. As the game goes along everything is given more depth too gameplay wise. More upgrades and interesting items. Scenes are given more meaning like many of my favorite films that use repetition to make scenes take on more meaning. The slow cinema movement often used this as its key. The viewer or player is given deeper context to what they may not have cared about as much if they didn't see a war, a killing, a love scene, etc in a different light from someone else's perspective. A video game about empathy if you will....in a time where empathy is all but lost. Is this just a game or have you now engaged so deeply with the text? These words take on a new meaning as the perspective shifts to the player. It essentially asks if you will engage with your memories of the game and keep those memories selfishly or use them as the characters have to choose for the greater good. 9S chooses the same way A2 and viewer must. A2 who was made to be part of this story by taking the memory of 2B....who is now essentially 2B and will now be killed by 9S as to rid everything in his path. 9S has become more human than anyone and has seen that killing is part of a cycle that even an android must contest with as he becomes human. What right do these Gods who come into the story like titans he cannot stop...what right do they have to deny him his memory....what right do the developers and pods at the end have to sacrifice your save data for someone else....again you just make the choice. Taro asks us to engage with the idea of sacrificing oneself for your own people and those you love. An idea often frowned upon by the leftist establishment in our culture. As I typed this review over the course of days I again kept recontextualizing other peoples experiences with the game with mine. The game morphs along with its story to different perspectives that a person can see the game and this story. We see mass swarms of enemies like his older games where the style was hack and slash hord gameplay Dynasty Warriors. We see these same enemies massacred from a top down view, from a side scroller view, from a thumb stick shooter pov....we engage with the gameplay from all sides the same way we do with the story in this repetitive fashion. Of course the gameplay gets so repetitive, of course the quest system is designed to waste your time and at odds with other elements, of course the story doesn't actually say anything deep by itself aside from muhh human existence is weird huh....but what the hell what game has all this. A game that is detached from what makes a game a game....but here he doesn't fail like so many other games that try to emulate movies do. Taro uses every gameplay element and gimmick in his playbook to tell a story of how the viewer must feel the same as the characters otherwise why did they waste their time and spend so many hours if they didn't care....just to see the twist? Just to see who the real villain is....and who does it turn out to be? Nothing. "Human nature" transposed onto androids. "Your own" people lied to you. Is there even a real central villain aside from life itself? The viewer must understand memories make humans human and if the viewer is able to relate their memories of the game into their own life then it has succeeded. The game even asks if you did indeed waste your time, and if yes, then let the pod delete your save data. From anime half naked androids to an android having its memories wiped then selling you their children....just damn. We see the world from every perspective, from the lowly basic android trying to save its friend all the way to the heavens with the Yorha space station all the way to A2 even reaching up into the heavens with a line speaking about seeing her people in "heaven". Taro even there doesn't simplify the religious aspect as many atheists working for developers in America would. A2 sees what? As you control her to run up into heaven....she sees code. She sees nothing. She has no homeland and has nowhere to go much like the humans. Its her memory that comforts her in her last moment of life and trying to make her mark as another form of civilization with her own care and love transposed on her by 2B's memories. Its an inversion of the political social deconstruction of society. You don't see here a basic take on poor vs rich or some other application of that hierarchical deconstruction, instead you see warring groups who can't understand each other.

It reaches anime levels of absurdity and conspiracy that is so enjoyable to finally reach by the end even if bogged down once again by the ending sytem. I was disappointed at first with ending A and C. Here it seems Taro thinks players will naturally like what he had to offer in the ending system which alienated me. In a bizarre way I loved the 2nd playthrough better than the first and hated ending A. I absolutely hated the game for essentially wasting my time and even with the extra endings it seems the story doesn't make a point...but this femboy mommy dom simulator is so interesting in all its failures. No game had me alienated while playing and outisde of the game itself thinking non stop about how well structured other elements about it are. I would gladly take this over any of the average games we get day in and day out. Theres a retarded vision here that isn't obsucured by the usual smugness found in leftist art films and American games made by coastal elites. Here the Japanese making parables to American ideas and really find their own way at expressing religion and soul searching. There isn't an attitude of looking down at us as is found in a lot of entertainment these days. Theres character revelations here that are genius in their construction even if a little over done and contrived. In making a game that has a gameplay goal of wasting your time, Taro managed to wear me down. Here I thought I would hate this and even the normal ending C for A2 made me feel empty....but the commitment to this story telling of endings sticks with you in funny ways I haven't seen a developer in gaming try to trick the veiwer. The game isn't really about begginings but about where your choices take you. After ending A I was ready to write a heated review about how Toro made a game you spend 30 hours in just to find out you have to replay it all over again to see the other half. Here even with stupid ending credits at all the not real endings of the game like MGS5, that literally don't need to be there and instead should've been something more artistic...Taro makes the use of credit sequences artistic. No other video game I could think of has done something like this aside from maybe the more obvious "fuck with the viewer" games. Within his own cone of vision that this ending credits deconstruction isn't just a simple tool he uses to be funny, he uses ending E as a conduit. Even with the fact that if this was told holistically that it wouldn't have any substance, the creativity and trying to explore endings in storytleling won me over. "And being alive is pretty much a constant stream of embarrassment", couldn't have said it better myself.

Taro took this all seriously. Theres no smugness involved in this exploration of existence. Some biases of course and soap opera style childlike tendencies...but he was genuine with this. It reminded me of Kingdom Hearts with the convoluted story that no adult would follow unless they grew up with it or are so plugged into the matrix of entertainment consumption. The genuine emotion connects with the child side of people. Here Taro makes immediacy and low tier aspiration into high art, all coming off as a deconstruction of all the games it owes itself too. A reddit tier jerk off soy fest was transformed into something of mythic proportions. With games like Last of Us 2 which take politics and artistic smugness mixed with every contrivance in the book that are purposely trying to piss you off for money....its this game that shows the Japanese are more genuine while American leftists have devolved into pure nihilism baked with contrivance to make you feel how they want. No room for moral ambiguity that has been a part of everyones history. No room to allow one to think over the ending away from the game. Even if both games are sledgehammers on the viewers head with their themes, somehow the less serious and more "goofy" game with overt blunt dialogue does it far better. Even games like Spec Ops the Line try this and fail due to their lack of engaging the veiwer away from cutscenes and forced events. Spec Ops almost got their with many moments, but this goofy anime game is able to get more emotion out of me even as its far further from reality. Here this feels almost classical not only in design but in soap opera meant to elicit care for human beings. Even the sexualization felt natural reminding me of things like Ghost in the Shell. No shitty revenge narratives baked in amoral gameplay design, all the contrivance here works because it is genuine. Now do I think this is the masterpiece that every reviewer on YouTube with shitty philosophical takes think the game is...no but this is worth anyone's time even if it loves to waste your time with repetition and shitty fetch quests in a barren world. This is Undertale but for the anime fans....and its also less gay lol Also plus points for having the player play attractive women. In games nowadays American devs love for the player to take their game super seriously by playing ugly women that are supposed represent reality cause you know acknowledging beauty is a sin now and sexualization of men is ok but not of women in art. Again fake 1st world moral quandaries by spoiled rich kids in the gaming scene. There so much to analyze here that I could go on and have even forgot so much I wanted to type down due to this heavy engagement I've had with the game away from even having the game on. This film is art and unlike many games I have been playing lately it has me putting it within the pantheon of great works of art I love outside of video games. The game doesn't offer the trite tired nihilism anti-spirituality of the west that western media has trained Americans to think like. The end hones in on "yes you are in charge of your destiny" and in a sense completely deconstructs the narrative that we all are the same and will make the same mistakes. Here Taro offers a optimistic and cold look into how when we look at our own mistakes and take our lives into a new meaning of connecting with our humans and our spirituality that we become the full fledge humans we were meant to be the same as 2B tries to lead 9S to even as she is controlled into killing 9S. Anti giving up due to your own issues. Escape selfishness.

To quote someone's critique of the 90s nihilism that was just starting to take full effect in America with the propaganda film Ameican Beauty (a film which I think completely contrasts to Taros optimism), "Free agency, it’s something that Americans have fought wars to obtain, and wars to avoid. Humanity has a love-hate relationship with personal responsibility, but as we all know, there are some people who hate it more than others. People who never want to take responsibility for their actions and people that expect everyone else to take care of their problems. Then there are those who think that at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what we do, what is going to happen is going to happen, it’s fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it, it’s unstoppable. The individual doesn’t stand a chance against the powerful forces of the universe whether they are working for or against them. Of course, it’s easy to imagine who would benefit from a public who universally believed this. That no matter what they did, things would all just happen the way that they are supposed to and there’s nothing you can do as an individual to stop it." Taro almost by accident reflects this in his depiction of the real "villains" behind the story but inverses it all. "The moral of the story is clear. Don’t try too hard, there is beauty in just going with the flow, mediocrity, and what you call beauty and your ambition and dreams are just fools errands. No seriously, this film argues to stop trying, just check out of life and work at a burger joint since in the end it doesn’t really matter because we all die anyway so you might as well give up on this pipe dream of free agency. One of the more famous scenes of the movie is when Ricky and Janie are watching a video that Ricky shot of a plastic bag blowing around in the wind. It is here that the filmmakers reinforce the idea that we are all just products of circumstance. We are all just swept up by the powerful forces around us and there is nothing we can really do. Lester has no control over his lusts and his midlife crisis was just an inevitable part of his story, his wife was destined to feel unfulfilled until she experienced the embrace of a man that understood her ambition, Ricky, Janie, and the rest of them are just plastic bags caught in the wind without direction or power over their fate. And that is how the last day of Lester’s life plays out. A string of fateful events setting off chain reactions, including Lester’s wife accidentally going through the drive-through where Lester has started working with the man she’s been cheating on him with." Taro refuses to believe the lies of todays nihilism and makes a humanist fable. 9S doesn't fully realize his fate was tied to his actions and is blinded by rage like most humans. A2 does the opposite and devotes the last moments of her life to trying to take this individual action to its breaking point. Taro doesn't alienate any idea. Its all religious, pro individual, and looks at both sides as part of the same coin. They try to sell to the androids that the way out was religion when it also took their own choices to effect the gretater good and make it into heaven. Responsiblity, empathy, memory, and spirituality play a key role here. Taro in a sense tell you that fate caused by evil actions of others can be reversed by this ending system as the only true ending is ending E as all the other endings make you go back. Fate is not sealed and you are a free agent in your place in fate, as your place in it is based on your actions. A2 takes responsibility for her actions. Taking the role of 2B is her greatest sacrifice and burden but she takes responsibility for her decision like an honest mother, unlike much of the youth today who worship leftist authoritarianism to the point where hypocrisy is born into their secret trust in the most corrupt forces they are so against. They are unable yo accept their issues are their fault based on their actions. Taro essentially asks if we will let the greater forces decide our fate or take responsibility that their control over us is our fault and stem from delusions to make ourselves feel better.