VN Talk: Steam Prison - Part 8: Grand Ending

There is one more ending! The Grand Ending is the last to unlock and it's a romance agnostic golden route where Cyrus not only gets to prevent her parents' murder in the first place, but the primary cast comes together in pursuit of a common goal, making this the only route where all the love interests are ever in the same room together.

Normally Cyrus goes out to the dining room unarmed when she hears a noise the night of the murder, but in the Grand Ending she decides to take her sword with her, which means that would-be murderer Fitzgerald doesn't stand a chance. She arrests him, reads him his rights, and she and her family are left baffled as to why he would break in in the first place.

Warner Evans tries to get Cyrus to drop the charges against his son, offering her any favor she would like, but of course she's the one girl who can't be bribed, and when Yune finds out that Fitzgerald was acting on Warner's orders, Warner agrees to face the assembly for punishment, kicking off the meat of this route.

Yune decides that the Heights have gotten too corrupted and wants to rebuild the assembly with input from the Depths, who have been ignored and looked down upon for too long, and he decides to send Cyrus to find a good representative from the Depths who'd been willing to help with the reconstruction of the government.

It doesn't make much sense why he'd choose Cyrus, who he's met all of two times, briefly, but it does the job well enough, giving her an excuse to meet Ines again, who recommends Eltcreed as a knowledgeable person to bring back. But Eltcreed needs to bring a radio transmitter with him so Ulrik comes along to maintain it, and then they worry Eltcreed could get attacked in the Heights so they bring a doctor, Adage, to look after him, and before you know it, a crowd of five is stuffed in the elevator for four and they're heading up the Heights. Just in time to interrupt a coup.

Fin joins, betrays, fake betrays (I don't really understand it) the group to add himself to their number and the team does a pretty good job of rolling through the Temple, eventually freeing Yune and defeating Warner, who finally spills the beans on his side of the Tistella murder story.

I'd wondered how Warner's relationship with Glissade worked, and the answer is that Warner is the boss and Glissade his subordinate. Glissade keeps an eye on the HOUNDS and the Depths for Warner, and in return Warner sends him people to experiment on. He describes it as feeding a dog. I can kind of understand that Warner might have wanted someone who was not a part of the HOUNDS and not a criminal for his stooge, and there aren't many people who are neither who are willing to go down to the Depths, but I think he would have been better off finding a biddable HOUND and offering him a chance to return to the Heights in exchange for info. Sure, he'd probably have to get a new spy every few years, and eventually word might get around in the Heights that he sponsered a HOUND to come back, but it'd be more gray area legal rather than the outright illegal he's gotten for human trafficking.

That said, it was nice seeing all the love interests working together and interacting with each other in a way that they don't do in most routes. For some, this is the only time they're in the same room with each other. A lot of their personal storylines are touched upon, from Adage meeting his father and realizing he's no longer the man he loved, to Ulrik and Yune meeting each other as the last of the Ferries and one who had been adopted by the Ferries.

That alone makes the Grand Ending quite grand, but it goes a step further with Yune addressing both the people of the Heights and the Depths about his wish for them to cooperate again. The Heights has better agricultural technology and medicine. The Depths has better engineering. The lots of both could improve if they work together. I loved the unconventional ending credits which is simply Yune making a heartfelt speech about bridging the divide as someone who has lived through the flood that separated the two populations, and has lived in the both pre-flood Depths and the post-flood Heights.

Post-credits, we find out that a few months later the Heights now use an election system, ending lifelong appointments and propelling many people who were not previously politicians into government. The sanctuary district has reps in Adage, Ines, and Sachsen. I found Adage a bit odd since he's a criminal and there's no mention of his sentence being commuted, but I understand the sentiment of wanting all the love interests to be involved. Sachsen was also a surprise, mostly because enough people voted for him to win, but it's suggested that he's not as bad as he initially appeared in the prologue so maybe he's become more humane now that the system that exiled him is no longer around.

Oddly enough, half of the representatives are from the Depths, which includes the area outside the sanctuary district. Symbolically that's nice, but realistically makes no sense because the Heights does not govern beyond the sanctuary district. It would be nice to have their input, but that's not necessary for trade or cultural relations.

Perhaps most importantly though, the authoritarian laws binding the denizens of the Heights have been lifted, so the government no longer requires marriage nor selects a spouse for its citizens. Cyrus is thrilled. And you'd think that'd mean Fin would be ready to go with a love confession and marriage proposal, but he doesn't confess and goofs on the marriage proposal, which pretty much makes him want to curl up and die (though Cyrus is oblivious).

So the game ends with a look forward to what everyone does with their lives in the future and Cyrus still single without a care about romance.

And that's fine. She's a gal who loves her job and doesn't need a man to feel complete.

That said, it's worth playing the optional epilogue to the Grand Ending where the guys meet up a year later and Cyrus is delayed, leaving the six of them free to talk with each other. It ends with them dog-piling on Fin for having made zero progress with Cyrus even though he simultaneously makes it clear that he won't tolerate any weirdos trying to court her, which of course leads the other guys to suggest that maybe they could give it a shot, assuming he doesn't think they're weird too.

It's pure fluff, but a good laugh and nice way to close out the game.