There’s a consistent line of questioning that occurs whenever we engage with an artistic work that deviates significantly from established norms which always comes down to some form of “why”. Why was this work created like this? What benefits are there to this unconventionality? This is something that’s usually only considered when evaluating works that fail to live up to a high standard, after all with a truly great work, every choice no matter how bizarre or banal is considered to be an important part of it’s artistic identity.
I establish all this to say that for most of 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim’s runtime, I was questioning it constantly. Why did this game, (one that establishes time travel as a narrative plot device in the first minutes) so insistent on also presenting itself as a nonlinear, chronologically inconsistent visual novel? Why are there numerous RTS roadblocks halting progression? And why oh why are there so many character introductions that amount to blips on a radar? It’s hard to pinpoint the exact spot where this messy story starts to make sense but once it does those questions began to fade into the background for a truly wonderful little game.
The rapid character introductions rapidly give way to a slew of small stories that all serve as homages to various science fiction tropes and stories, none of which are particularly overbearing in a way references can be. The formula is then to draw interest through referencing another work before the character writing and scenario begin to morph into the story the game wishes to tell. In this sense the writing remains largely consistent as my initial experience with each of the character’s scenarios was firstly understanding what media they were homaging before it becomes a much more nuanced understanding of who the character’s are and what their motivations are. In this sense the nonlinear, “choose your story” aspect of the game becomes a very effective way of maintaining someone’s interest. In the sense that a player should have some baseline familiarity with the story a character’s tale is homaging before hopefully being intrigued by one of the cameo appearances present. The most fortunate outcome for 13 Sentinels is that all the character’s stories are at least somewhat interesting or maintained by the appearance of a side character I had grown fond of.
The relationship between culture, art and the media environment born from it remains a surprisingly important theme for this story through to the very end. For something that at first glance can appear to be a mishmash of all kinds of various tropes from anime, Hollywood and sci fi novels, an consistent strength is how the characters never feel overshadowed by the world that surrounds them. Of course this means the world of the game but also the modern world of the players to a more subtle extent. Some of the best musings of the 1940s era characters have pertain to their understanding of the wartime and post-war relationship between Japan and the west. The basic fish out of water storyline of a person from 1940 seeing the 80s for the first time is tinged with far more melancholy when considering the history of Japan and the media they have created since then. This isn’t quite the anti escapism,” live in the real world” preachiness that a lot of media of this country can be guilty of but rather something that displays far more nuance about how media affects our lives. Naturally this gives way to some science fiction craziness by the story’s end but the attempt to engage critically with this stuff was largely a success.
The big detriment to having the ability to choose your own path is that sometimes critical information can be delivered way too early or implied in a way that sidesteps an important reveal. While this game does have some dependencies on story progression it didn’t stop a few handfuls of times where I was able to witness something that perhaps should’ve been saved for later. The story dependencies thankfully preserve the biggest story beats which thankfully I feel will land regardless of whatever order the player chooses. Despite this it makes me feel that there must be an ideal play order somewhere that perfectly preserves the games twists and orders them in a natural way but overall, the game was better served giving you the options to choose how you wanted to approach things.
The one question I still had lingering at the final hours was a big fat why at the RTS segments that constitute the other half of the game. These aren’t bad to be clear, but it doesn’t take that long to figure out a strategy to be prepared for virtually any situation for the first half of this segment. For the second half however, the game gets absolutely crazy with enemy formations to the point where I wasn’t really sure what other strategies, I could employ besides grinding earlier missions for experience. Not something I would recommend playing on hard. Despite this however, the game still reached a kind of catharsis for me in the final mission where the enemy forces go absolutely hog wild trying to take over your final base. The screen was so flooded that my system began to lag until one well-placed skill struck with such ferocity that I was able to retake my framerate. Pardon my language here but it was pretty kino.
For a game in which I was questioning it’s every design decision at the start, it managed to leave me with little questions at the end. Despite there being an entire narrative glossary mode to relive past events, the story still made complete sense without ever having to look at it. That’s partially why I’ve avoided speaking about any of the characters though my favorites were, Yakushiji, Gouto and Minami. One thing the marketing for this game doesn’t really tell you is that the game revels in romance and while I don’t think it was necessary for every character, one moment of Yakushiji’s story in particular was filled with enough youthful candor that it melted away the last remaining cynicism in my heart. Was a big fan of this one.
I establish all this to say that for most of 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim’s runtime, I was questioning it constantly. Why did this game, (one that establishes time travel as a narrative plot device in the first minutes) so insistent on also presenting itself as a nonlinear, chronologically inconsistent visual novel? Why are there numerous RTS roadblocks halting progression? And why oh why are there so many character introductions that amount to blips on a radar? It’s hard to pinpoint the exact spot where this messy story starts to make sense but once it does those questions began to fade into the background for a truly wonderful little game.
The rapid character introductions rapidly give way to a slew of small stories that all serve as homages to various science fiction tropes and stories, none of which are particularly overbearing in a way references can be. The formula is then to draw interest through referencing another work before the character writing and scenario begin to morph into the story the game wishes to tell. In this sense the writing remains largely consistent as my initial experience with each of the character’s scenarios was firstly understanding what media they were homaging before it becomes a much more nuanced understanding of who the character’s are and what their motivations are. In this sense the nonlinear, “choose your story” aspect of the game becomes a very effective way of maintaining someone’s interest. In the sense that a player should have some baseline familiarity with the story a character’s tale is homaging before hopefully being intrigued by one of the cameo appearances present. The most fortunate outcome for 13 Sentinels is that all the character’s stories are at least somewhat interesting or maintained by the appearance of a side character I had grown fond of.
The relationship between culture, art and the media environment born from it remains a surprisingly important theme for this story through to the very end. For something that at first glance can appear to be a mishmash of all kinds of various tropes from anime, Hollywood and sci fi novels, an consistent strength is how the characters never feel overshadowed by the world that surrounds them. Of course this means the world of the game but also the modern world of the players to a more subtle extent. Some of the best musings of the 1940s era characters have pertain to their understanding of the wartime and post-war relationship between Japan and the west. The basic fish out of water storyline of a person from 1940 seeing the 80s for the first time is tinged with far more melancholy when considering the history of Japan and the media they have created since then. This isn’t quite the anti escapism,” live in the real world” preachiness that a lot of media of this country can be guilty of but rather something that displays far more nuance about how media affects our lives. Naturally this gives way to some science fiction craziness by the story’s end but the attempt to engage critically with this stuff was largely a success.
The big detriment to having the ability to choose your own path is that sometimes critical information can be delivered way too early or implied in a way that sidesteps an important reveal. While this game does have some dependencies on story progression it didn’t stop a few handfuls of times where I was able to witness something that perhaps should’ve been saved for later. The story dependencies thankfully preserve the biggest story beats which thankfully I feel will land regardless of whatever order the player chooses. Despite this it makes me feel that there must be an ideal play order somewhere that perfectly preserves the games twists and orders them in a natural way but overall, the game was better served giving you the options to choose how you wanted to approach things.
The one question I still had lingering at the final hours was a big fat why at the RTS segments that constitute the other half of the game. These aren’t bad to be clear, but it doesn’t take that long to figure out a strategy to be prepared for virtually any situation for the first half of this segment. For the second half however, the game gets absolutely crazy with enemy formations to the point where I wasn’t really sure what other strategies, I could employ besides grinding earlier missions for experience. Not something I would recommend playing on hard. Despite this however, the game still reached a kind of catharsis for me in the final mission where the enemy forces go absolutely hog wild trying to take over your final base. The screen was so flooded that my system began to lag until one well-placed skill struck with such ferocity that I was able to retake my framerate. Pardon my language here but it was pretty kino.
For a game in which I was questioning it’s every design decision at the start, it managed to leave me with little questions at the end. Despite there being an entire narrative glossary mode to relive past events, the story still made complete sense without ever having to look at it. That’s partially why I’ve avoided speaking about any of the characters though my favorites were, Yakushiji, Gouto and Minami. One thing the marketing for this game doesn’t really tell you is that the game revels in romance and while I don’t think it was necessary for every character, one moment of Yakushiji’s story in particular was filled with enough youthful candor that it melted away the last remaining cynicism in my heart. Was a big fan of this one.