VN Talk: Piofiore: Fated Memories - Part 7: Finale

As you finish every best ending in the game, an old timey film plays with a countdown starting at 5 and counting down as each ending is achieved, with 0 heralding the finale. I was expecting a brand new route, but instead it branches off of Gilbert's with a few new scenes being added to the parts in common between them, which feels a bit weird, but I suppose makes sense given that the finale serves as an explanation for what was going on in Gilbert's route as well as a deeper dive into the backstory between the Key Maidens and the Falzone family.

If the player makes the right choices in the prologue and Gilbert's route (which are generally easy to spot because they are new), fake editions of a national newspaper show up announcing sordid crimes by the various mafia families that causes them to fall out of favor with the common people, and this comes to a head shortly after Gilbert and Liliana find out about the casino being in on the counterfeiting. Liliana's safety is Gilbert's priority, and since staying with any of the mafia now is decidedly not safe, she goes back to the church. Since this happens before she falls in love with Gilbert, the Finale branch proceeds with Liliana unattached to anyone.

If Gilbert's route felt like a golden route with everybody being at their action-packed best, the Finale is more like a fan disk, with lots of lower stakes and moments of warmth. Once Gilbert is no longer the primary male character in Liliana's life, Orlok takes up being her bodyguard (since he's unaffiliated with the mafia) and she gets scenes with all of the guys to varying degrees to reflect her lack of attachment. If not for the fact they are in a race against time to foil the casino direttore's plans and discover his identity, I would say that the route is quite fluffy, with most of the guys being kind to her.

VN Talk: Piofiore: Fated Memories - Part 6: Gilbert

Throughout the game I was wondering why Gilbert was the final love interest, especially since Dante's route felt like it explains so much of the church storyline and Gilbert doesn't seem involved in that at all.

That said, starting his route was a lot of fun because the game knows the player has a certain baseline of information to work with, including the back stories of all the love interests aside from Gilbert, so even if Liliana is bewildered about a three way battle erupting in the church when Yang comes to kidnap her, it's laughingly business as usual to the player. The only thing that was a little weird is that after fighting breaks out between the Lao-Shu and Falzone, Orlok is the one to rescue Liliana from Yang and send her running out into the night clad in nothing but her nightgown while he tries to hold everyone else back.

So while everybody who is aware that she's a valuable person is fighting, who does she bump into but Gilbert Redford, who is out for a late night walk. And I was (probably unintentionally) amused that after offering her shelter and security, Gilbert declared that the safest place in Burlone is next to him. Considering that he is the one love interest who has been killed by every other love interest on at least one other route through the game, I probably would have felt safer with anyone else (barring Yang).

VN Talk: Piofiore: Fated Memories - Part 5: Orlok

Orlok's route is unlocked at the same time as Yang's, by the completion of Nicola or Dante's route, which at first felt like an unusual step, but once I discovered he and Liliana spend almost half the route with the Lao-Shu I could see some kind of logic behind it.

Nicola and Dante are both part of the Falzone, and their routes serve as an introduction to the status quo of the city and how the various characters and factions fit together. Yang and Orlok are a showcase of the Lao-Shu side of the story and why the tension in Burlone has come to a boiling point at this particular moment in time.

But just as the opening routes and the first set of unlocked routes can be grouped together by mafia family, you can group Nicola and Yang's routes as being completely secular and unrelated to the greater story, while Dante and Orlok's can't help but be tangled up by all the church intrigue. Thus, while I don't think it makes much of a difference whether Yang's route is played second, third, or fourth (with Gilbert being a mandatory fifth due to route-lock order), playing Orlok before Dante would be an incredibly different experience.

I don't think it would necessarily be a bad one, but the player would be working with a different set of assumptions for most of the route and I'd be curious how that changes the experience.

VN Talk: Piofiore: Fated Memories - Part 4: Dante

It felt a bit odd playing Dante's route in the middle, because he's the poster boy (usually sharing the spot with Gilbert), but given that I got Nicola first and wasn't sure about doing back to back Falzone routes, this is how things played out. He was a conscious choice rather than a roleplaying one though, since the prologue doesn't introduce new choices with a second route completion and because I knew some spoilers I had a preference to play his route before Orlok's.

Dante is the dedicated boss of the Falzone family, and as such is intrinsically tied to Liliana's own story, and it's in Dante's route that we find out why. In fact his story is so tied to why everyone's fighting over her that some players are surprised he's one of the two routes available at the story of the game, as playing Nicola's route is a fairly straightforward mob story and Dante's shoots off into Da Vinci Code territory.

Though it starts in a similar fashion to other routes, with Liliana falling under Dante's protection and being hustled away to the Falzone manor, and then there's some sitting around at home while lots of mafia dealings are happening, there's a distinct change when the term "Key Maiden" comes up.