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The Plot (major spoilers)

By Xmasplitend

The other day I played through this game. And then I did it again, and then a third. Kudos to the devs for making such a mysterious, interesting, and unique story for this gem of a game, but I can't stop thinking about it. I should probably be thinking about things other than this game when midterms are around the corner, so for my sake and hopefully yours, I will make an earnest attempt to explain the story of this game in full, along with my own interpretation of it. Please, do yourself a favor and experience this game yourself first before reading through this. Major spoilers ahead, and if I leave anything out/get some details wrong, feel free to point it out below in the comments.

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Xmasplitend
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Languages: English

Posted

22 Feb @ 6:15pm

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Guide Index

Overview

Before the game

During the Game

The Endings

Conclusion

Comments

Before the game

Approximately 40 years or so before the trio enter the mirror world, Gerald Campbell formulates the aura adoption hypothesis. In essence, it claims that art influences life, and in turn that life influences art. Thus, there must be a sort of "god" with creative powers driving this cycle that resides within each film studio. (pretty significant logical jump, but we'll roll with it) Unsurprisingly, the greater scientific community ridicules his theory and it fades into obscurity. Despite this, Gerald's son, Mike, wishes to prove his hypothesis right, and purchases the film studio Bluefair studios as an experimental site for his efforts. In his research, he intends to create a false god as described in his father's theory, thereby proving the hypothesis correct. However, it is apparent from the god's description in the hypothesis that it has the capacity to grant wishes, which is pretty useful. So, Mike's work attracts the attention of the government, who secretly fund his research. His initiative grows into T&C corporation, which conducts research in a hidden facility under Becky's high school. (presumably ideal since there were plenty of "volunteers" as explained near the end of the game) They are the ones responsible for creating the mirror world that the game takes place in, which was created with the hopes that the realm would have a controllable mirror god with the capabilities described in the hypothesis.

However, if you couldn't tell from the above, Mike has more than a few screws loose in his head. Some point after the creation of the mirror world but before the awakening of the mirror god, he intentionally sabotages the project, and keeps the documents regarding the research' progress so far to himself. One of his coworkers, the camerawoman Kelly Cross, plots to forcibly repossess the information, and ends up burning both Mike and his daughter Audrey alive. She presumably succeeds, and research continues, until Kelly is accidentally killed by Lisa, her sister, in a filming accident. Kelly thus remains resentful of Lisa in death. After this series of incidents, the project is mostly abandoned. However, an unknown benefactor (implied to be an older Lisa) continues to support the research, which is now conducted in secret by Mike's other daughter, Jasmine Campbell.

During the Game

So, this leads us to the events of the game, over a decade after Kelly's death. Jasmine becomes friends with Tomaro and Becky, and deems the latter, a depressed high school girl utterly lost in life, fit to be the offering that awakens the mirror god that her family has been trying to create. So, she plots to lead them into the mirror realm to finish what her family started two generations ago. A notable hazard of the mirror realm is that it slowly drains a person's blood to feed the dormant god. Once enough blood has been drained, said person turns into one of the many enemies encountered throughout the game. In order to prevent this, Jasmine kits out her group with blood-retention suits, and specially provides Becky with a school uniform that resembles Lisa's on the day she killed her sister to make her a suitable offering. This causes K. Cross' spirit to haunt Becky without her knowing at the start of the game, and the spirit, being in Becky's perspective, believes itself to be Becky, oddly enough.

After a car ride, Becky and Tomaro meet up with Jasmine, who leads them to the underground studio under their high school that was mentioned previously. The trio pass out, and find themselves split apart within the mirror realm. Upon awakening, Becky encounters a giant floating head which is presumably the actual god of the former Bluefair studios, and K. Cross forms a pact with them to ensure that the awakening of the mirror god isn't a complete catastrophe. Becky continues, and finds herself within the mirror realm version of her school, which is the point where the gameplay actually begins. As Becky goes through the school, K. Cross watches over her and acts as her guardian angel. (name of the game lol) She eventually runs into an older Lisa, going by the pen name Wendigo Solace, who gives her a letter from Tomaro that asks her to go to a different section of the school so that they can escape. She follows the letter and encounters Tomaro, who is suspiciously different from the one in the beginning of the game. After fetching some food for her, Becky follows Tomaro into a machine that presumably lets them leave the realm, but instead it drags them deeper. At this point, Tomaro morphs into a monster and the first boss fight occurs. It is apparent that this Tomaro was a fake, and actually an attempt by Lisa to kill Becky and use her as a vessel for the manifestation of the mirror god. However, K. Cross kills the monster, making the attempt unsuccessful. Becky continues further into the mirror realm.

At this point, Jasmine contacts Becky by phone and asks her to come to the gymnasium. Becky follows Jasmine's suggestion, but on the way she falls underground, and emerges at (possibly) the former research area in the mirror realm's early days. Here, she encounters Lisa again, who asks her to find the passcode to unlock a door that may allow Becky to leave. Unaware that Lisa had made an attempt on her life, Becky agrees and finds the passcode. The door unlocks, but just as Becky is about to leave, she faints after bleeding out, and awakens further within the mirror realm. She makes a run for a door beyond the unlocked door as a sea of blood begins to rise, and makes it in time to find herself in an old, run-down area of the mirror realm. She continues, and the second boss fight occurs. The second boss has a similar appearance to Becky, suggesting that it may be a manifestation of the mirror god in an attempt to complete the ritual, although there is never an explicit mention of such. Regardless, K. Cross defeats it and Becky moves on.

She runs into Jasmine and nearly beats her to death, almost bleeding out herself in the process. Jasmine provides some explanation for their situation, but upon realizing that the previous attempts at manifesting the mirror god through Becky have failed, decides to use herself as a vessel, and leaves. A weakened Becky follows her, and continues traversing through the mirror realm, until the end of the game.

The Endings

The game ends in 3 possible ways depending on the status of the pact with the god. In the bad ending, the pact is broken and everything explodes. (womp womp) In the Y ending, the god only has enough power to spare to make sure that the scenario above doesn't happen. Regardless, Becky and Tomaro make it out, after fighting yet another monster. It is implied that the false god successfully manifests with Jasmine as a vessel, (nothing else indicates otherwise, so it would be safe to assume so) and that the monster that is fought in this ending is a morphed version of Lisa. However, Becky can see colors and appreciate the sky again so that's nice.

Ending B is probably the "true" ending. After running some more through the mirror realm, Becky encounters Jasmine once again, who uses both a Becky and K. Cross as an offering, "killing" Becky. Becky's death is temporary, however, as the pact with the god compels it to resurrect Becky, and give both an opportunity to exit the mirror realm for good. Becky reawakens, and learns that K. Cross has been haunting them the entire time, and believes herself to be her. In disbelief, she then goes to end things by confronting Lisa, who orchestrated the events of the game out of guilt for murdering Kelly, but runs into a dead end. K. Cross lends her power to Becky, and both overcome the dead end, and confront Lisa. K. Cross comes to terms with her, and then kills the mirror god, who used Jasmine as a vessel, ending things for good. In the end, the original trio survive and successfully escape, while Kelly goes to the spirit realm where she belongs.

Conclusion

So, that's the story of the game. Definitely missing some details and there are some loose ends, such as why the school uniform is needed for the ritual, what exactly the pact does for the god, and what role Kelly plays in the manifestation but I think I got most of the important details down. Enough to make a sensible story anyways.

So, that leads us to ways that the game might be interpreted. It is a work of art after all. I believe the message is mainly found with Becky. She's just drifting through life although she has the capability to do what she wants (as pointed out by Tomaro) until she goes through the events of the game, after which she manages to turn her life around for the better. (as seen in the epilogue) The reason why can be seen if you consider Kelly and Becky to be the same person. (Kelly considers herself to be Becky for a majority of the game, after all) Throughout the game, Kelly watches over Becky and ensures she doesn't fall victim to the frankly oppressive environment of the mirror realm, and gives her the strength she needs to go across the gap in ending B and end things once and for all. In this way, the game hints that you are your own best friend. By encouraging and supporting yourself, you can accomplish things that seem impossible and come out of situations that seem certain to end you. If you take the "life imitates art" portion of the aura adoption hypothesis seriously, then you have a way of convincing yourself that you are worthy of your own support and encouragement if you think otherwise, like Becky does at the beginning of the game. Fittingly enough, if you interpret the game in this manner, then you have a start convincing yourself via the aforementioned. A sweet message from a good game, although it could just be that I'm too optimistic and seeing what I want to see.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. It's been fun picking this apart. A good mystery is always nice, and I'm gonna be thinking about this game for a while.

9 Comments

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Xmasplitend [author] 6 Mar @ 3:14pm

That just makes this even more impressive, wow. Also, thanks for letting me know I'll be sure to check that out.

Just_Matt 5 Mar @ 12:43am

"The devs" is actually *a* dev, singular - and you should check out his previous, much older game too if you haven't already! It's called Times Infinity, and it's a real treat of a doujin game.

Aikiu 28 Feb @ 8:08pm

Omg that's awesome, guess I'll go back to finish all the challenges now.

Xmasplitend [author] 28 Feb @ 5:33pm

Aikiu, if you S rank all of the challenges you unlock from the blue camera caps scattered throughout the game, you can unlock an extra epilogue scene. In there it's outright stated that the trio survive, and there's an implication that it takes place after ending B.

Aikiu 28 Feb @ 10:49am

Also love the message you took from the game, I feel like I resonate with it more on a personal level.

Aikiu 28 Feb @ 10:40am

This was a good read! I was actually super interested in the story after sometimes. Though it's possible where does it imply that The Trio all made it out alive in the supposed "true" ending? .

VhatTheHeck 24 Feb @ 9:09pm

I love this actually, when i first played this game i was really drawn into it by the art style but about halfway ish through the plot was genuinely super super interesting to me and you mostly said all the things i was thinking, but you def have some different takes and its actually really cool to see what other people see in this game.

Xmasplitend [author] 23 Feb @ 4:58pm

Yeah, honestly in the interpretations sections I kind of went with the first thing I thought up of. After thinking about the game some more I realized that that's probably not what it's trying to say. I feel like its definitely trying to say something, but like you say the game is so bizarre that its hard to make sense of it. Part of the fun of trying to pick this game apart I suppose.

Infinity Overdose 23 Feb @ 3:31pm

Very interesting. I played through two endings and still had no concept of even the base theme of the game. It just seemed very strange and abstract. Reading though your explanation, things make more sense but it still seems way too convoluted for most people to care.
The 'You are you own best friend' message is a hard sell. I doubt depressed people (including myself) readily latch onto the idea of self-importance through the context of a separate consciousness sharing your head 'shooting camera rounds' at 'enemies' to keep you safe. Given how bizarre and opaque the game is, however, I suppose people come to many different emotions.
Thanks for the guide, maybe the next playthrough will have more meaning.

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