Emil's home yet?

it starts so simply - machines, faceless, emotionless creatures, have taken over the earth. You,
2B, have been tasked with helping to stop them, so that humanity can return. And on your first, let's call it a "playthrough", although that suggest something more fractured than the cohesive while the game presents, everything is mostly simple.

Sure, the game starts to knock on the door of some deeper themes than the average Platinum title; on the first trip to the desert (a tone of nothingness, reminiscent of Journey) the robots seem to have developed a basic fight or flight instinct. They mutter "scar...yy" yet still attack, whilst one final bit takes you on a fruitless chase. There's a tell here. The fight or flight instinct was one of the first developed by our prehistoric ancestors, enabling them to sense danger, enabling them to survive.

Other basic emotions develop - in the amusement park, we see concepts of joy, celebration, and play being formed. Deeper into the game, we enter the forest, where a hierarchy has formed - we've sped forward thousands of years to the structure of basic societies, and a forest king rules the machines.
Late on in the game, Taro confronts us with a dark aspect of humanity - religion. To "become as gods", the robots feel they need to sacrifice their lives, jumping into molten pits in a refinery, but also, terrifyingly, killing their own in order to "become as gods". Of course, the parallel is pretty straightforward at this point, and essentials, we are being confronted with the question "well, what defines us as human."

It's a question posed by the game's first final bosses, perhaps a little clunkily named Adam and Eve. Aliens, who created the robots summarily created these advanced AIs who turned on their creators and wiped them out. Adam's desire is knowledge , and the realisation that humans are complex beings fascinates him. Yet he boils down all of their emotions into one base instinct - conflict. In the ensuing fight, he wishes to feel alive, and disconnects himself from his network. His death is definitive, and spurs his brother into a murderous rage. When Eve us finally defeated, it comes at the expense of your partner, the over eager and distinctly more human 9S. At the end of the first run through, however, it appears that 9S has transferred into a robot's body. As the credits roll, the question of "what is it that defines us as human" is again apparent. 9S was certainly the most human, yet is in the awkward form a faceless robot - is this still 9S??

Of course, product testing leaves us with a message from the PR team after the credits. "PLEASE KEEP PLAYING" it screams, "THERES MORE GUV, HONEST". I wonder how many do. That first run is a 12 hour action RPG that has a full arc and a clear ending. It is, for all intents and purposes, a complete game. There's a bittersweet ending, but you've saved the world from the AI, and cute little pacifist robot Pascal has had his village saved too.
Put the game down.


Or don't. And on your second run, things aren't fully that different. You're playing as 9S now, with the ability to hack into robots to attack them (a mini GeoWars game). We start the game playing as a robot, trying to bring life back to his dead "brother" - fitting, given what we've just had with Adam and Eve. However, 9S spent most of his time by 2B's side, so apart from the odd time where he goes to help elsewhere, it's the same run, just with his own take on events. A chance to collect some more sidequests maybe. New game plus.
Towards the end of the game, 9S is injured and returns to the moon base where humanity's last colony awaits return to earth. Although... That moment where you were in the base's network revealed something weird. Why is the base receiving empty shipping containers?

The truth, delivered offhand is one of the first major twists to your perception of what's going on. Humanity is wiped out. It hasn't existed for thousands of years, and the androids have been fighting just, essentially, to have a purpose. The game starts taking us down concepts of futility of purpose and not just what it means to be human, but what it means to stay human. A later, once more slightly heavy handed cutaway to Pascal reading Nietzsche confirms this. Yet press on we do, and the second run through is considerably easier due to 9S' OP hacking ability. Eve is swiftly dispatched again, but not before 9S debates whether or not to tell 2B the truth he knows - is it better for her to imagine she has a purpose?CREDITS

Playthrough 3 then. You absolute loon. You've seen the game fully through. You've seen the ending, you know the twist. Playthrough 3 is about punishing you, the player,
taking away everything you've grown fond of throughout. You must really hate yourself. In that Haneke way, you could just put down the controller and walk away. Everyone still exists, you've got your endings. But, no, you need to keep putting them through this - you're the one who needs a purpose. Taro wastes no time in challenging you to keep going.
2B is killed, her death a slow slog across half the map, reminiscent of Snake's irradiated tunnel crawl in MGS4. Still with us? 9S doesn't get to be yours. You are now 2A, a thoroughly unlikeable android who has gone rogue, and lives to kill. All she wants to do is find robots to kill. So then Taro throws one of the toughest bosses in the game at you, a proper Platinum dodge-fest. Still playing? Well Pascal's loveable village has now been infected and has gone feral. He's saved the children, but you need to wipe out everyone else.

It gets harder. The robots come to attack the children, and you, finally getting to play as Pascal, heroically save the day. The problem is, Pascal taught the children fear, in the hope it would make them more human.

They've all killed themselves while you were away to make the fear disappear.

Pascal can't live with the pain, so asks you to wipe his memory or kill him. There's no other option here. Sure, wiping the memory seems the better one, but you must hack, and then physically remove all his happy memories, which replay. It's rough.

Is this what humanity is? Endless need of purpose at the expense of others? The push to continue to mean something?

Thoroughly broken, the player converges the paths of A2 and 9S, the latter believing A2 responsible for the death of 2B. What's left? A fight to the death. 9S has become unhinged and unstable, having slain robots in rage.
The game asks you to pick who you wish to play as.

No matter what, you both die.

So we play through it on both sides (a handy chapter select opens up after the end of playthrough 3.)

And then, something special happens. During the credits, a voice of the robot pod offers to be able to save 9S, 2B and 2A at the expense of the (now meaningless) base on the moon. One final hacking geo wars game needed. It's to defeat the credits. Yes, this has been done before (see Smash Bros, for example ) but the credits become more and more violent , reaching bullet hell levels. Each death rewards you with a taunt "do you want to GIVE UP?" "DO YOU THINK GAMES ARE STUPID?" until finally, messages of support from other players around the world show up. You're offered the help of others who have completed the game. Accepted.
The run through the end is swift now, completely overpowered. And the reward? 2B and 9S returned, alive to each other, and 2A back, looking over the world. The true ending. Smiles.

The game asks if I want to write a message of support, from pre selected phrases for other players who have finished the game. Of course.

Then it tells me - do you want to help someone else, somewhere across the world, who you will never meet, to finish the game? YES OF COURSE. Okay, well like those players came to support you during your time of need, you can do the same.
All it will cost is your save file.

But. I've got 25 out of 26 endings.
I've put hours in.
Sacrifice, purpose, fuck.

I couldn't do it. Feels like garbage, but I kept my file.

Yes

The first run doesn't end with ending A. It's just a break