Eike is so real for opening the door to some random woman's home, saying absolutely nothing as she wonders why he's just standing there, and awkwardly answering her with "oh, nothing" as he immediately leaves. Like a sim going into the kitchen and forgetting what he was going to grab. He be me for real.
Reminds me of the time I stopped in at a shop but it wasn't what I was thinking it was going to be. Dude was like "Can I help you ?" As I sit there trying to come up with an answer. I didn't even give him an "Oh, nothing" I just said "Ummm" and then ran out.
honestly sometimes i just walk into a room and forget why i was there in the first place and if anyone asked what i was doing i too would just say "nothing"
I remember if you go back and touch your sleeping past self in the cafe, reality exploded in a singularity paradox. Me and my friend wouldn't stop making jokes about the world ending because "you couldn't stop touching yourself".
I remember renting this game as a kid (sort of) but the only thing I could remember about it was that bit. I couldn't even remember the name. So until I found this video and your comment i wasn't even sure it actually existed and wasn't a dream
Final note on the voice acting: Most of the characters are voiced by people that had mercifully short careers in voice acting, only getting a few roles right around '99-'01 as you might expect, where anyone could be a video game voice actor no matter your talent or experience or whatever. The biggest exception though is homunculus who was voiced by motherfucking Charles "Mario and Luigi" Martinet. What an absolutely wild fact. Clearly his 100+ credits as Mario don't stand a candle to his ultimate work as Homunculus in Shadow of Memories.
@@HakagureThis. I'll take the charm of a wonky performance by a relatively unknown actor over hearing the cast of The Last of Us in every third title.
I miss bad voice acting. Now it's just the same mid-tier actor set per studio. Boring, especially when bad voice acting can save a bad game or anime through sheer amusement.
The ending where eike drops the digipad and accidentally beating the antagonist without any understanding of what he did is the best character moment of any game and is the most logical ending considering the kind of character he is.
It is fascinating finding someone who actually used the sign as the metal plate to prevent the stab. Most people just have Eike do the obscure bizarre ways of procuring the frying pan.
Nothing is better than voice acting where you can tell the actors weren't in the same room, and were just doing their best to sell contextless lines on a page.
fun fact, the town Lebensbaum is actually loosely based on Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a small town in southern Germany that is best known for its nearly completely preserved old town. It really does look like in the game, with all of these hal-timbered houses and such... hell, even the red and white flags hanging from the buildings are accurate, as these are the insignia colours of Franconia (the region it's located in).
I cannot believe I’m seeing someone talk about this obscure game in 2023!! I played it nonstop back in high school. Absolutely obsessed with it. Christ I even read fanfics for this game lol! I aimed for 100% in the game and was perpetually stuck at 98%. Still haunts me all these years later Thanks for that amazing walk down memory lane!
"I'm sorry I called you the devil. I don't want to die." That's really nice to treat even spirits so polite. Also nice to see Fred the Traveller again lol, and digipad sounds like some stupid device from digimon
Ohmigosh, that early line from Homunculus about how she once held a baby and "it was exhausting," and then when you finally find out what she was talking about. That is some oddly good foreshadowing.
I’ve seen interviews of Eike’s voice actor, Scott Keck, he’s a good sport about how much of a dork he made Eike sound. He said that some of the devs came from Japan to San Francisco to oversee the acting, which probably explains the weird deliveries since quite a few of these localized games from this era have that same sort of cadence to their dialogue.
I actually really liked that the NPCs in different eras all used the same character models. It made sense - these are ancestors and their descendants. No wonder they look alike!
Some of your commentary literally made me burst out laughing "until then what!?". your videos are always such a huge pleasure to watch and an upload always brings a huge smile on my face !!
Virgin Butterfly Effect believer: "ooh.. i've traveled back in time.. i hope i don't accidentally step on an ant and affect the timeline in a bad way and lead to a dystopian future.. uwu..." Eike Kusch the Gigachad: "I'mma go change the past in the most convoluted and unnecessary ways just in case it might affect the present slightly."
I really adore this, it's genuinely giving Yoko Taro a little bit. PS2 was genuinely the peak of strange experimental games like this that are what I miss most about this era. Yeah they still pop up every now and then but this console and time period was just really special for games.
I don't know... Personally I feel the PS1/Saturn was the peak of strange experimental games. What with 3D graphics being new and there not existing any current trends and many games starting those trends. By the PS2 some of those trends were starting to become normal and many game companies were starting to chase them. However I totally get what you mean, there was a lot of interesting titles on the PS2 still. Not saying you are wrong or anything just that I feel the PS1 really had the most weird titles. The time period was still very special. While we don't see games like this anymore in the current space Indie devs are definitely keeping the spirit alive.
This still doesn't touch the weird that SUDA51 games have. Killer7? Killer Is Dead? No More Heroes? This game kinda feels like standard fare for Japan experimenting with Western themes/genres not typically found in their own country. Maybe I'm just jaded to weird stuff.
5:25 Time continues to pass forward in your starting time point even though you are time travelling? Interesting, the rather rare and underutilized "bill and ted" time travel rules. Excellent.
Side note but Eike is very pretty, even in all his PS2 glory. I could only imagine how good looking Eike would look on the extremely low chance this game was remade.
I love Shadow of Destiny and I love Suikoden, and now that I know they had the same incredible lady behind both of them I think I might love them more. As a side note, you can instead pinch a frying pan from somewhere (past Eckart's house?) and use it to prevent the second stabbing. I didn't actually know you could steal the Franssen sign 😮 And yeah like someone else commented the voice actor for Homunculus was Charles Martinet. He can do more than Mario it turns out.
It's charm is what captivates me. The sense of exploration in Lebensbaum through the ages, seeing all the descendants and ancestors similarities and finding all the little extra scenes here and there is a real treat. I also love how each Ending adds more context to the overall story and the secret EX Ending delivers a coherent conclusion. Great video, I enjoyed the ride 👍
Ahhh yes, the game where Mario's voice actor voices an Agender twink. Surprised that wasn't mentioned! That was a neat little bit of trivia! The first PS2 game I ever played too back in the day!
@@jimtroeltsch5998 the only reason many people bought Zone of the Enders was to play the MGS 2 demo that was included lol it was as if they paid full price for a demo and got a full game included
Used to play through this game a ton when I was younger trying to find every possible route through the game. It probably doesn't hold up now, but I remember absolutely loving the atmosphere of the town in the game, particularly in the game's modern era. Just something about the town's overall rustic look juxtaposed with the modern embellishments made it really appealing to me for some reason.
I remember watching Retsuprae review this. They did point out some of the insanity of it. Like "Oh I got murdered by a tree? Let's go back in time and kill the tree so I can't be murdered!" and then they actually did that. This game is best not taken too seriously, but that one drunk driver ending is just, so stupidly hilarious.
this game reflected that era. creative freedom given to real artists. every game felt unique and niche genres and artists vision were aloowed to flourish even the controls felt unique when you played a new game you never knew what to expect they all had their unique game mechanics. espicially japanese games with this semi anime artstyle. they really tried to immerse you in their fantasy. from the menus to the custom fitting soundtrack to how much efort they put in the lore and hidden easter eggs..despite the scales being small these small map felt more alive and packed with details than big budget high graphics modern titles
That feeling is still alive and well today in the indie space. In fact the barrier to entry in making a game is so much lower than it was back then so it's easier for an artist to craft their vision.
@@Gatorade69i cant agree with that, the indie market is beyond bloated. Even if there are real gems in there, they're mostly burried under roguelike, soulslike sandbox survival cash grabs
@@Gatorade69 the indie scene is great if you can filter out the trash for the passionate projects.. gameplay wise there is a lot of innovation to be found in indies but not the same level of effort put into atmosphere and presentation .. its like they dont take themselves seriously on purpose and its bad .. both of you are correct in a way but its porbably somewhere in between
I still own this game. My copy is called Shadow of Destiny and it was quite strange, but fun. I still have some nostalgic memories I recall once in a great while 2 decades later.
It’s weird to me that Charles martinet the same guy that did the voice for Mario and Luigi voices one of the characters in this game, and somehow doesn’t sound like himself…
Some of the reason for the stilted line reads is that the dub was likely done locally in Japan to save costs, using English speaking voice actors that live there. A lot of these actors went on to be in Arc Rise Fantasia and several other games, which suffer from the same sorts of problems voice-wise.
Dang, this is a blast from the past! It makes me so happy to see people still enjoy these games. I had so much fun with this title when I was a kid. Experimenting with different outcomes, endings... it was the coolest thing.
So apparently I've watched a let's play of this 11 years ago, and you have just unlocked that memory for me... so, thanks? Btw, great video yet again. I found you a few weeks ago and have listend to/watched pretty much everything by now, your choices of obscure games are always very interesting!
This was so wonderful, to be able to see the larger part of a unique PS2 game I never played, and never would have known a thing about otherwise. And you made it a very amusing, cozy ride. Thank you, this was so much more well worth watching than much of what I do on this platform, and I generally try to watch worthwhile stuff. Again, wonderful experience, thank you.
Me and my brother played this game a lot back in the day. Aunt got it for us thinking it was a RPG, we had played the Dragon Warrior gameboy games together. While we were disappointed it wasn't a RPG we still had a lot of fun figuring out all the scenes. We never got all the endings tho.
This game has been a guilty pleasure of mine for the last 20+yrs lol I adore this game and what a fantastic vid explaining it all! Thank you for uploading this!
dang this was such a blast from the past thanks for going through the endings! i don’t think the young me really understood everything so there were a few i never got
I just watched this whole video today and I’m still watching your others. Totally deserve more views, great pacing, great narration, glad I found your channel
Homunculus is probably one of the most androgynous early 3D characters I’ve ever seen next to Raiden (MGS2) and Kou (The Bouncer) Something extremely uncanny about the character design and voice acting (and vocal effects) that’s reassuring yet deeply disturbing
Man this game used to freak me out as a kid, the game was rather eerie at points anyway but I remember that instance where you travel back in time and if you happen to meet past Eike in the café, some time shit happens with two anomalies collapsing or something but you see Eike's face in some monochromatic colour and that used to scare me so much for some reason me and sis had a hard time getting past because of it ahahhaha There was one instance we always found funny tho, there is a ladder you'll need in one of the eras to get up somewhere but Eike literally puts that into his pocket, then whenever taking it out when he doesn't need it he'd just be like _uh-uh don't need it now_ whilst holding the ladder like man, how'd you fit that in your pocket 😂
I watched Usedpizza do a run of this, and boy what a ride Glad to see you cover this, watching Eike die in some weird way after each chapter was hilarious
I randomly found this game for sale at a local office supply shop on pc and I was so curious about it that I bought i and played it immediately. I loved the differences in each timeline based on some of your choices. it sits somewhere in the back of my brain rent free and I'm glad I'm not the only one who enjoyed it in its own way.
Man this is so wild to see, I have vaguely nostalgic memories from playing this back on PS2. I got stuck at one point about halfway through and was never able to finish it.
Wow, seeing just a moment of gameplay gave me a powerful sense of familiarity, but not from playing it. I almost immediately remembered that I watched Retsupurae talk over it, back in 2014. That feels like a lifetime ago, now. I remember almost absolutely nothing besides the two clocks in the corner.
Urgh such an underrated game, I have so many fond memories of playing this with my brother when we were kids during summer holidays. 😂 I guess it’s what got us into mystery and puzzle games! I wish there was another game similar to this for ps4/5!
I loved this game and played it so much back in the day. It was really cool how you could do different things and there were different options you could pick.
This game gave me nightmares and I'm not even joking the only time I've ever experienced an earthquake was playing this game I really think it's cursed
This was one of the first games I played on PS2, it was a rental so I had no chance of seeing all the endings... I don't even remember if I finished the game at all, but it stuck with me for 20 years because of how downright quirky and bizarre it was.
Loved this when it came out but not sure I ever finished it. Really good to see it get a close look, and I had no idea it had such a close connection to Suikoden. Great video man. And on finishing the video I can definitely see the Suikoden connection in the artwork, it's a shame it didn't translate to the game too well.
I found out about this from some other source: The reason why in the ng+ ending the homunculus can be killed by the philosopher's stone is that, because the homunculus is created with the philosopher's stone, he actually IS the stone. In other words, he and the stone are the same "person" from differnt points of time. And like what's already shown in the game multiple times, if one touches his alternative self from another time in a time travel, it'll cause a paradox and both will get removed from the timeline. So the stone hitting the homunculus actually triggers that rule and removes him entirely. It's a big eureka moment of the story, and this is probably considered the "true ending". That is not to say the other ending are false though, because only after Eike has learned the information from all the other endings, or time branches, will he be able to come up with that final strategy. I'm not sure if you missed this part, or if it's caused by the translation.
nice, happy to see this game covered. I found this in a bargin bin at a mall gamestop I loved the game and nearly got all endings, but could never recall the title only the look of it. also iirc if you 100% the game you find out the homunculus is actually a djinn.
Oh my god, what a throwback! My sister and I had such a good time playing and replaying this game back in the day. I knew I had to subscribe to your channel after the Cosmology of Kyoto video, and this upload just cemented my good decision :)
Some of the puzzles are pretty clever, and they keep showing how actions in previous times have consequences. You stay in the same little town, just different earlier versions of it. The first death is a nice, simple introduction to the basic game loop. You can't directly confront the murderer, but you can change some circumstance so that event never plays out. Standing with three other people spooks the murderer. But the root threat is still there, next time the murderer has a car and runs Eike over or sets a house on fire with him inside. Small locations around town change and you get these little references to other versions of yourself gong around. Like the juggler with the mysterious message. This is more time-travelling british murder mystery than any sort of horror. You go around solving your own deaths.
I'm so glad someone else remembers the Digipad working by responding to certain stuff connected to Eike. Most people seem to have no idea, and even I can't remember where I heard it.
For a 2001 PS2 game, this genuinely has a really interesting story. I never heard of this game even in “hidden gems” videos from other RUclipsrs. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I would like to play it myself even after watching your spoilers. P.S: Margarete is fine as hell for an early PS2 game. I can see why the old hags were jealous.
my most fave part is if you let the kid adopt the kitty the future place will be filled with cats lol also your own statue at the plaza will either has a lighter or a phone depending on what you showed at the townsfolk to scare them lol
I love this game. I played Halo and later Gears of War religiously but this japanese time travel game is probably one of my favorites games ever because it is so different than any othe game even during the PS2 generations. Nothing else like it. Shame the director only made a few other games.
whoa i remember my dad and i played this game together years ago...we never finished it, and for a while i wondered how it ended before it sort of deleted itself from my brain. i'm glad i know now, haha. i do remember being obsessed with homunculus' cool nonbinary energy though. such a strange but charming game!
I feel like the music was going for an eerie quirky sort of feel, which i think works perfect for a game where you use a time travel device to prevent your own death. Though it gets really close but just misses the mark
he is!!! in every other ending that is, but like damnnnnnn how is he supposed to be dr wagner in ending E if he vanished back in 1580s? unless homunculus was lying but. what for
Ah yes, this and Lunacy on the Sega Saturn form my favorite weirdly specific adventure game subgenre of "Sarcastic, pretty men with amnesia bumbling in to things." Never got a chance to play the original, but did mess around with the remake on my old Vita - I had remembered reading about it in a magazine years ago and it was just as bizarre as I had hoped, though I didn't appreciate it at the time as time travel has never appealed to me; though now that I have more knowledge of the other endings, the game handles it all in a pretty clever way. Might have to try and track down another copy now!
@@elysium0610 It's defined entirely by me noticing patterns in the kinds of narrative focused adventure games I tend to gravitate towards rather than an officially recognized trope, so take this list with a grain of salt: Lunacy/Torico, for sure; the Death Mark games, though the first and second mainline titles have a handful of really jarring fanservice scenes to be aware of; I personally haven't played it but AI: The Somnium Files would count based off what I've seen and read; Crooked Man and Boogie Man from the "strange men" series, or Hotel Dusk also technically qualify - though there's less of the amnesia factor and more "unreliable narrator/ misremembering details due to trauma" at play; a few of Suda's "Kill the Past" series, like The Silver Case and Flower, Sun and Rain. There are games from other genres with shades of these tropes, like Limbus Company (if you're willing to disregard the "pretty man" part of the equation as the player character has a flaming clock for a head).
I bought this on a whim back in the day. And though clunky as it was, I truly ended up loving this game. I liked the story, and how everyone fit into it. I miss weird little games like this 😊
This game is such a gem, I was so surprised to see youtube recommend this to me. I associate the game with Fall, so it's been in my mind. Very well made, thank you for making this and highlighting some really good moments the game had!
![State of Play | September 24, 2024 [ENGLISH]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/fVs0suPHAX8/mqdefault.jpg)
Eike is so real for opening the door to some random woman's home, saying absolutely nothing as she wonders why he's just standing there, and awkwardly answering her with "oh, nothing" as he immediately leaves. Like a sim going into the kitchen and forgetting what he was going to grab. He be me for real.
> Intruding like a baddie
> "Oh, nothing"
> Leaves without explanation
This is how you do a proper mindset better than the cringe Sigma's
Real? Or a creep? 😂
YOOOOUU
Reminds me of the time I stopped in at a shop but it wasn't what I was thinking it was going to be. Dude was like "Can I help you ?" As I sit there trying to come up with an answer. I didn't even give him an "Oh, nothing" I just said "Ummm" and then ran out.
honestly sometimes i just walk into a room and forget why i was there in the first place and if anyone asked what i was doing i too would just say "nothing"
Never try to bring back your dead mother through alchemy, Hugo. You wouldn’t be the first one to fail.
Possibility of sweet metal limbs and alchemy powers though.
@@clothar23 With sibling soul anchored on an armor too!
Chicken go “cluck cluck,” cow go “moo.” Dog go “bark bark,” cat go “mew.” Girl go
“Ed-ward”
I remember if you go back and touch your sleeping past self in the cafe, reality exploded in a singularity paradox. Me and my friend wouldn't stop making jokes about the world ending because "you couldn't stop touching yourself".
"I'm going to end the world!"
"How?"
"I'll tell your if our show age ratting will go higher"
I remember renting this game as a kid (sort of) but the only thing I could remember about it was that bit. I couldn't even remember the name. So until I found this video and your comment i wasn't even sure it actually existed and wasn't a dream
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
Final note on the voice acting: Most of the characters are voiced by people that had mercifully short careers in voice acting, only getting a few roles right around '99-'01 as you might expect, where anyone could be a video game voice actor no matter your talent or experience or whatever. The biggest exception though is homunculus who was voiced by motherfucking Charles "Mario and Luigi" Martinet. What an absolutely wild fact. Clearly his 100+ credits as Mario don't stand a candle to his ultimate work as Homunculus in Shadow of Memories.
Honestly that was a better time for voice acting. Now youve got a handful of people that voice everything cuz it's more of a clique
@@HakagureThis. I'll take the charm of a wonky performance by a relatively unknown actor over hearing the cast of The Last of Us in every third title.
The voices aren't bad except for the annoying kid with the annoying kid voice which is appropriate.
*_its a me mario_*
I miss bad voice acting. Now it's just the same mid-tier actor set per studio. Boring, especially when bad voice acting can save a bad game or anime through sheer amusement.
The ending where eike drops the digipad and accidentally beating the antagonist without any understanding of what he did is the best character moment of any game and is the most logical ending considering the kind of character he is.
when was the last time u played this game?
More endings need something like that in video games
It is fascinating finding someone who actually used the sign as the metal plate to prevent the stab. Most people just have Eike do the obscure bizarre ways of procuring the frying pan.
Nothing is better than voice acting where you can tell the actors weren't in the same room, and were just doing their best to sell contextless lines on a page.
fun fact, the town Lebensbaum is actually loosely based on Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a small town in southern Germany that is best known for its nearly completely preserved old town. It really does look like in the game, with all of these hal-timbered houses and such... hell, even the red and white flags hanging from the buildings are accurate, as these are the insignia colours of Franconia (the region it's located in).
Thank you for the information, now i know where i have to do go soon.
fun fact
Rothenburg ob der Tauber also stood in in parts for Rittersberg (Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within)
i was about to say it looks just like wrocław old town
@@Loemai aand a bit of it is copied into Monkey Island
I cannot believe I’m seeing someone talk about this obscure game in 2023!! I played it nonstop back in high school. Absolutely obsessed with it. Christ I even read fanfics for this game lol! I aimed for 100% in the game and was perpetually stuck at 98%. Still haunts me all these years later
Thanks for that amazing walk down memory lane!
if you don't mind, i am a person who finding a SoM's lover everytime since i've beat it
So i guess they put the Dana calling you a Dad line in to imply they are not going to hook up because that Dana is actually his daughter.
Or implying that they will because of her father complex.
Oh, daddy!
dana is probably the daughter of eckart that was kidnap
@@RinkoCH-sg3kl no the text is pretty clear that she is not. She is you daughter that was swapped out
@@danwichgames her mom looks like her
"I'm sorry I called you the devil. I don't want to die."
That's really nice to treat even spirits so polite. Also nice to see Fred the Traveller again lol, and digipad sounds like some stupid device from digimon
considering it was called a digivice in digimon it really isn't far off.
@@jeppejensen5091 idk why I didn't put two and two together there lol. Ty
Um, excuse me, nothing from digimon is stupid. /j
@@donovanfaust3227 :) love you friend
Ohmigosh, that early line from Homunculus about how she once held a baby and "it was exhausting," and then when you finally find out what she was talking about. That is some oddly good foreshadowing.
I kinda figured it was gonna be Eike. Also, IS Homonculus a she?
I think the homunculi is an ADAM? Basically male and female at the same time.
@@WobblesandBean As an artificial being I doubt it actually has a biological sex tbh.
@@tessfabled4115 But it's voiced by a man, so if you HAD to pick one, it'd probably be male.
I’ve seen interviews of Eike’s voice actor, Scott Keck, he’s a good sport about how much of a dork he made Eike sound. He said that some of the devs came from Japan to San Francisco to oversee the acting, which probably explains the weird deliveries since quite a few of these localized games from this era have that same sort of cadence to their dialogue.
They re-dubbed the game for the PSP, tho, which sounds much different. If you have the PC version, there's a PSP re-dub mod on ModDB, lol.
@@KyanoAng3l0 There are mods for this game?
@@olivercharles2930 Apparently. Lol.
@@KyanoAng3l0 different voice actors.
48:07 Eike: "I know what I am doing."
*Eike did NOT know what he was doing.*
The alchemist having the same voice actor as the guards from oblivion is incredibly jarring
Ha! He does. I didn’t even notice. That could have made for a good joke.
The Homunculus was voiced by Charles "Mario" Martinet.
His voice work is leagues above everyone else's too 😂
The Imperial guards were voiced by Wes Johnson, the alchemist was voiced by Bruce Robertson. So unfortunately not the same actor.
That drunk driver ending is the most amazing thing I've ever seen in a video game. 10/10
Lol, for some reason, Homunculus's scared little "oh no!" as he gets turned into goo just sends me.
It's the underselling of that, followed by the shriek as it actually dies for me.
I actually really liked that the NPCs in different eras all used the same character models. It made sense - these are ancestors and their descendants. No wonder they look alike!
Yes, Junko is really smart for that one. She showed that those people are the ancestor & descendant, just by using the same model characters.
12 minutes in and i just noticed how fucking LONG eike's legs are
Ending D gives a pretty good explanation of why Eike is such a doofus with seemingly no past.
One of my first deaths in this game was going back in time and touching Eike in the cafe, creating a time paradox
Some of your commentary literally made me burst out laughing "until then what!?". your videos are always such a huge pleasure to watch and an upload always brings a huge smile on my face !!
I just write down my honest reactions when I’m recording footage and use them in the scripts. Glad you’re enjoying it!
I remember scaring the people in the past with the cellphone, then in the future they make a statue of you holding the freaking cellphone XD!
I wonder why nothing happens from 1939 to 1945.
Virgin Butterfly Effect believer: "ooh.. i've traveled back in time.. i hope i don't accidentally step on an ant and affect the timeline in a bad way and lead to a dystopian future.. uwu..."
Eike Kusch the Gigachad: "I'mma go change the past in the most convoluted and unnecessary ways just in case it might affect the present slightly."
The first ending i got had Eike dead ass lay down in the middle of the road and then get run over this game is fucking wild
I really adore this, it's genuinely giving Yoko Taro a little bit. PS2 was genuinely the peak of strange experimental games like this that are what I miss most about this era. Yeah they still pop up every now and then but this console and time period was just really special for games.
I don't know... Personally I feel the PS1/Saturn was the peak of strange experimental games. What with 3D graphics being new and there not existing any current trends and many games starting those trends. By the PS2 some of those trends were starting to become normal and many game companies were starting to chase them.
However I totally get what you mean, there was a lot of interesting titles on the PS2 still. Not saying you are wrong or anything just that I feel the PS1 really had the most weird titles. The time period was still very special.
While we don't see games like this anymore in the current space Indie devs are definitely keeping the spirit alive.
Yoko Taro...? You're just throwing around names.
If anything, this has similarities to Swery 65 games.
This still doesn't touch the weird that SUDA51 games have. Killer7? Killer Is Dead? No More Heroes? This game kinda feels like standard fare for Japan experimenting with Western themes/genres not typically found in their own country. Maybe I'm just jaded to weird stuff.
5:25 Time continues to pass forward in your starting time point even though you are time travelling? Interesting, the rather rare and underutilized "bill and ted" time travel rules. Excellent.
This is now my favorite channel. I binged all of your videos. It was the most calming experience I ever had.
I played this with my mom on the weekends when I was a kid. Seeing all of this again is such a blast from the past
Side note but Eike is very pretty, even in all his PS2 glory. I could only imagine how good looking Eike would look on the extremely low chance this game was remade.
Dana? Is that you?
@@Galathorn dana is his daugther. you mean margarete. 🤦♀
A true bishounen.
Based Bishi boyfriend 😭
I thought I was the only one to notice how pretty he was lol. But I can't really say I'm surprised considering how much japan loves pretty boys
I love Shadow of Destiny and I love Suikoden, and now that I know they had the same incredible lady behind both of them I think I might love them more.
As a side note, you can instead pinch a frying pan from somewhere (past Eckart's house?) and use it to prevent the second stabbing. I didn't actually know you could steal the Franssen sign 😮
And yeah like someone else commented the voice actor for Homunculus was Charles Martinet. He can do more than Mario it turns out.
Yep I learned years ago that the same voice actor for the homunculus is is also super Mario!?!
Ow, my back!
It's charm is what captivates me. The sense of exploration in Lebensbaum through the ages, seeing all the descendants and ancestors similarities and finding all the little extra scenes here and there is a real treat. I also love how each Ending adds more context to the overall story and the secret EX Ending delivers a coherent conclusion. Great video, I enjoyed the ride 👍
Discovered your channel recently and i LOVE your work. The humour, pacing, slow cozy vibes are hypnotic. Thank you for the amazing content.
Thank YOU for watching. Glad you enjoy the videos!
Between how pretty he is and the voice acting Eike seems like a complete himbo. Very good, very charming game.
Ahhh yes, the game where Mario's voice actor voices an Agender twink. Surprised that wasn't mentioned! That was a neat little bit of trivia!
The first PS2 game I ever played too back in the day!
The first PS2 game I ever played was the Bouncer. That game sucked. And the second game I ever played was Zone of the Enders.
Wait, Charles Martinet voiced the homunculus?! Bro's got some talent if he can do that, Mario, then swap over to the growly baritone of Paarthurnax.
@@lilwyvern4 yup! he sure did and sure does!
@@jimtroeltsch5998 the only reason many people bought Zone of the Enders was to play the MGS 2 demo that was included lol it was as if they paid full price for a demo and got a full game included
Christ who left the door open for the fucking furries
Played it back then. It was interesting, also how Japanese people imagine life in an old German small town.
It is great how goofy Eike is.
Used to play through this game a ton when I was younger trying to find every possible route through the game. It probably doesn't hold up now, but I remember absolutely loving the atmosphere of the town in the game, particularly in the game's modern era. Just something about the town's overall rustic look juxtaposed with the modern embellishments made it really appealing to me for some reason.
Absolutely incredible game. You couldn't have done a better job in the telling and analysis of this WILD story. 'Hey! I need more!'
I remember watching Retsuprae review this. They did point out some of the insanity of it. Like "Oh I got murdered by a tree? Let's go back in time and kill the tree so I can't be murdered!" and then they actually did that. This game is best not taken too seriously, but that one drunk driver ending is just, so stupidly hilarious.
this game reflected that era. creative freedom given to real artists. every game felt unique and niche genres and artists vision were aloowed to flourish even the controls felt unique
when you played a new game you never knew what to expect they all had their unique game mechanics. espicially japanese games with this semi anime artstyle. they really tried to immerse you in their fantasy. from the menus to the custom fitting soundtrack to how much efort they put in the lore and hidden easter eggs..despite the scales being small these small map felt more alive and packed with details than big budget high graphics modern titles
That feeling is still alive and well today in the indie space. In fact the barrier to entry in making a game is so much lower than it was back then so it's easier for an artist to craft their vision.
@@Gatorade69i cant agree with that, the indie market is beyond bloated. Even if there are real gems in there, they're mostly burried under roguelike, soulslike sandbox survival cash grabs
The fact that the barrier of entry is getting lower and lower isnt really a good thing
@@santasangre996 "mOdErN gAmE bAd !"
Indie bad ! AAA garbage ! Wahh, wahh.
@@Gatorade69 the indie scene is great if you can filter out the trash for the passionate projects.. gameplay wise there is a lot of innovation to be found in indies but not the same level of effort put into atmosphere and presentation .. its like they dont take themselves seriously on purpose and its bad .. both of you are correct in a way but its porbably somewhere in between
I still own this game. My copy is called Shadow of Destiny and it was quite strange, but fun. I still have some nostalgic memories I recall once in a great while 2 decades later.
It’s weird to me that Charles martinet the same guy that did the voice for Mario and Luigi voices one of the characters in this game, and somehow doesn’t sound like himself…
Some of the reason for the stilted line reads is that the dub was likely done locally in Japan to save costs, using English speaking voice actors that live there. A lot of these actors went on to be in Arc Rise Fantasia and several other games, which suffer from the same sorts of problems voice-wise.
Dang, this is a blast from the past! It makes me so happy to see people still enjoy these games.
I had so much fun with this title when I was a kid. Experimenting with different outcomes, endings... it was the coolest thing.
So apparently I've watched a let's play of this 11 years ago, and you have just unlocked that memory for me... so, thanks?
Btw, great video yet again. I found you a few weeks ago and have listend to/watched pretty much everything by now, your choices of obscure games are always very interesting!
Was it the Retsupurae one? I watch it in full every now and then
Homunculus death and Dana stay in the past and Margaret stay in the present and got adopted by her biological parents is the true good canon ending
Eike is probably me if I ever got the chance of time travel
This was so wonderful, to be able to see the larger part of a unique PS2 game I never played, and never would have known a thing about otherwise. And you made it a very amusing, cozy ride. Thank you, this was so much more well worth watching than much of what I do on this platform, and I generally try to watch worthwhile stuff. Again, wonderful experience, thank you.
My grandmother used to occasionally treat me to a ps2 game and I chose to take a punt on this at the time and it became one of my favourite games!
52:53 Eddie from SH2 is the drunk driver! That's some meta Konami shit.
Still better than Life is Strange
That's my bedtime channel now, just chillin
Excellent. Love to hear it
Me and my brother played this game a lot back in the day. Aunt got it for us thinking it was a RPG, we had played the Dragon Warrior gameboy games together. While we were disappointed it wasn't a RPG we still had a lot of fun figuring out all the scenes. We never got all the endings tho.
Ow, my back!
For such a goof and a silly game, Eike has such a great character design and the drawn art is wonderful. Thanks for the great review!
This game has been a guilty pleasure of mine for the last 20+yrs lol I adore this game and what a fantastic vid explaining it all! Thank you for uploading this!
dang this was such a blast from the past
thanks for going through the endings! i don’t think the young me really understood everything so there were a few i never got
Gotta love how homunculus dies
"Oh no... *AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA* _o-oooohhhhh~_ 😩😱"
I just watched this whole video today and I’m still watching your others. Totally deserve more views, great pacing, great narration, glad I found your channel
Homunculus is probably one of the most androgynous early 3D characters I’ve ever seen next to Raiden (MGS2) and Kou (The Bouncer)
Something extremely uncanny about the character design and voice acting (and vocal effects) that’s reassuring yet deeply disturbing
It's like that weird claymation "Hi Stranger" animation. I should be creeped out, yet...I'm oddly comforted by it.
I thought he was a girl on the box art. XD
Man this game used to freak me out as a kid, the game was rather eerie at points anyway but I remember that instance where you travel back in time and if you happen to meet past Eike in the café, some time shit happens with two anomalies collapsing or something but you see Eike's face in some monochromatic colour and that used to scare me so much for some reason me and sis had a hard time getting past because of it ahahhaha
There was one instance we always found funny tho, there is a ladder you'll need in one of the eras to get up somewhere but Eike literally puts that into his pocket, then whenever taking it out when he doesn't need it he'd just be like _uh-uh don't need it now_ whilst holding the ladder like man, how'd you fit that in your pocket 😂
I watched Usedpizza do a run of this, and boy what a ride
Glad to see you cover this, watching Eike die in some weird way after each chapter was hilarious
Im guessing why the homonculous dies from the philosophers stone is because it was made with it-so standard time travel no 2 things in one place deal
I randomly found this game for sale at a local office supply shop on pc and I was so curious about it that I bought i and played it immediately. I loved the differences in each timeline based on some of your choices. it sits somewhere in the back of my brain rent free and I'm glad I'm not the only one who enjoyed it in its own way.
Man this is so wild to see, I have vaguely nostalgic memories from playing this back on PS2. I got stuck at one point about halfway through and was never able to finish it.
Wow, seeing just a moment of gameplay gave me a powerful sense of familiarity, but not from playing it. I almost immediately remembered that I watched Retsupurae talk over it, back in 2014. That feels like a lifetime ago, now. I remember almost absolutely nothing besides the two clocks in the corner.
I feel like 1997-2004 were the years of characters having abnormally long legs.
I played this towards the end of the ps2. Got every ending. And I don't think i ever saw that scene with the old woman alive.
Man I love the dub and dialogue, it plays out like a Xavier Renegade Angel episode.
Man.. Xavier. What a blast of nostalgia.
@@dungeonchillWonder Showzen was better. 🤷 Xavier was good, but the lightning just didn't strike the same way twice.
Urgh such an underrated game, I have so many fond memories of playing this with my brother when we were kids during summer holidays. 😂 I guess it’s what got us into mystery and puzzle games! I wish there was another game similar to this for ps4/5!
I loved this game and played it so much back in the day. It was really cool how you could do different things and there were different options you could pick.
This game gave me nightmares and I'm not even joking the only time I've ever experienced an earthquake was playing this game I really think it's cursed
This was one of the first games I played on PS2, it was a rental so I had no chance of seeing all the endings... I don't even remember if I finished the game at all, but it stuck with me for 20 years because of how downright quirky and bizarre it was.
Loved this when it came out but not sure I ever finished it. Really good to see it get a close look, and I had no idea it had such a close connection to Suikoden. Great video man. And on finishing the video I can definitely see the Suikoden connection in the artwork, it's a shame it didn't translate to the game too well.
Holy hell I played this and totally forgot it existed, as soon as I saw the opening it was like a core memory got unlocked. What a wild game
This game made an impact when I played it as a teenager
I found out about this from some other source: The reason why in the ng+ ending the homunculus can be killed by the philosopher's stone is that, because the homunculus is created with the philosopher's stone, he actually IS the stone. In other words, he and the stone are the same "person" from differnt points of time. And like what's already shown in the game multiple times, if one touches his alternative self from another time in a time travel, it'll cause a paradox and both will get removed from the timeline. So the stone hitting the homunculus actually triggers that rule and removes him entirely. It's a big eureka moment of the story, and this is probably considered the "true ending". That is not to say the other ending are false though, because only after Eike has learned the information from all the other endings, or time branches, will he be able to come up with that final strategy. I'm not sure if you missed this part, or if it's caused by the translation.
nice, happy to see this game covered. I found this in a bargin bin at a mall gamestop I loved the game and nearly got all endings, but could never recall the title only the look of it.
also iirc if you 100% the game you find out the homunculus is actually a djinn.
Oh my god, what a throwback! My sister and I had such a good time playing and replaying this game back in the day. I knew I had to subscribe to your channel after the Cosmology of Kyoto video, and this upload just cemented my good decision :)
captivating narration, immaculate vibes, great humor, weirdass obscure game - yep, must be another banger Dungeon Chill video
Some of the puzzles are pretty clever, and they keep showing how actions in previous times have consequences. You stay in the same little town, just different earlier versions of it. The first death is a nice, simple introduction to the basic game loop. You can't directly confront the murderer, but you can change some circumstance so that event never plays out. Standing with three other people spooks the murderer. But the root threat is still there, next time the murderer has a car and runs Eike over or sets a house on fire with him inside. Small locations around town change and you get these little references to other versions of yourself gong around. Like the juggler with the mysterious message. This is more time-travelling british murder mystery than any sort of horror. You go around solving your own deaths.
Him just chucking the stone at the homunculus was hilarious
I'm so glad someone else remembers the Digipad working by responding to certain stuff connected to Eike. Most people seem to have no idea, and even I can't remember where I heard it.
For a 2001 PS2 game, this genuinely has a really interesting story. I never heard of this game even in “hidden gems” videos from other RUclipsrs. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I would like to play it myself even after watching your spoilers.
P.S: Margarete is fine as hell for an early PS2 game. I can see why the old hags were jealous.
my most fave part is if you let the kid adopt the kitty the future place will be filled with cats lol
also your own statue at the plaza will either has a lighter or a phone depending on what you showed at the townsfolk to scare them lol
I love this game. I played Halo and later Gears of War religiously but this japanese time travel game is probably one of my favorites games ever because it is so different than any othe game even during the PS2 generations. Nothing else like it. Shame the director only made a few other games.
whoa i remember my dad and i played this game together years ago...we never finished it, and for a while i wondered how it ended before it sort of deleted itself from my brain. i'm glad i know now, haha. i do remember being obsessed with homunculus' cool nonbinary energy though. such a strange but charming game!
nothing cool about nonbinary weird mental gymnastics
I feel like the music was going for an eerie quirky sort of feel, which i think works perfect for a game where you use a time travel device to prevent your own death. Though it gets really close but just misses the mark
50:25 come to think of it, he IS actually her (biological) father. I guess that's why the writers put the "dad" joke there?
he is!!! in every other ending that is, but like damnnnnnn how is he supposed to be dr wagner in ending E if he vanished back in 1580s? unless homunculus was lying but. what for
Ah yes, this and Lunacy on the Sega Saturn form my favorite weirdly specific adventure game subgenre of "Sarcastic, pretty men with amnesia bumbling in to things." Never got a chance to play the original, but did mess around with the remake on my old Vita - I had remembered reading about it in a magazine years ago and it was just as bizarre as I had hoped, though I didn't appreciate it at the time as time travel has never appealed to me; though now that I have more knowledge of the other endings, the game handles it all in a pretty clever way. Might have to try and track down another copy now!
do you have any games of this "subgenre" to recommend?
@@elysium0610 It's defined entirely by me noticing patterns in the kinds of narrative focused adventure games I tend to gravitate towards rather than an officially recognized trope, so take this list with a grain of salt: Lunacy/Torico, for sure; the Death Mark games, though the first and second mainline titles have a handful of really jarring fanservice scenes to be aware of; I personally haven't played it but AI: The Somnium Files would count based off what I've seen and read; Crooked Man and Boogie Man from the "strange men" series, or Hotel Dusk also technically qualify - though there's less of the amnesia factor and more "unreliable narrator/ misremembering details due to trauma" at play; a few of Suda's "Kill the Past" series, like The Silver Case and Flower, Sun and Rain.
There are games from other genres with shades of these tropes, like Limbus Company (if you're willing to disregard the "pretty man" part of the equation as the player character has a flaming clock for a head).
@@M0ssP1gletthanks! it helped me a lot, i will give a try in some of this games
shoutouts to Retsupurae for their playthrough to introduce me to this experience.
now that name’s a blast to the past
I bought this on a whim back in the day. And though clunky as it was, I truly ended up loving this game. I liked the story, and how everyone fit into it. I miss weird little games like this 😊
i always loved this game such a unique experience. homunculus is one of my favourite video game characters.
I have fond memories from this game. It's funny, smart, convoluted, and even touching.
This game is such a gem, I was so surprised to see youtube recommend this to me. I associate the game with Fall, so it's been in my mind. Very well made, thank you for making this and highlighting some really good moments the game had!
Dunno why, but A LOT of games from that era feels like they were made to be played in autumn
Very well done video on an often overlooked gem.
Hugo's voice is making me wish I was deaf
I remember renting this as a kid and never making it far before it was time to return it.
Not even five minutes in and I'm already sold on this game being a worthwhile gem.