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.
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.
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"
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.
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!
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).
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.
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'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
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
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!
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.
FUN FACT If you travel back in time at the beginning of the game, you can see yourself asleep at the bar. If you touch the other you, because of the impossibility of having 2 Eikes in 1 universe, everything is destroyed.
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.
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.
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 !!
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 👍
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.
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."
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.
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…
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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 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.
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
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 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.
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.
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!
it's cool that the creators made the familial characters look alike. modern dana and hugo look like siblings, margerette has brown hair and looks like her mom. dana calling eike dad makes sense because he is in fact her dad. but eike sucks as a dad for losing his daughter and forgetting what she looks like immediately.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Even if I don't find this game suited to a playthrough myself, I appreciate the creativity that existed in the PS1 & 2 generations when niche titles with genuine creativity seemed more common than today. Games have now approached monolithic categories of familiarity and I find value in the uniqueness and creative idiosyncrasies of titles like these. Thanks for sharing! :)
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
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 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
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 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.
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 hope to use my channel to bring attention to games like this - it's one of my favorites! Regarding Eike trusting Homunculus, its because Homunculus helped him avoid his death. By sending him to that point in time, he helped Eike get info to shock Eckart and break the vase. Jugglery isnt the costume, but the stuff you juggle he go after putting the costume on! : D Also, not sure if you know this - writing this while watching, - but you can beat Chapter 4 immediately. If you clear Chapter 2 after meeting the juggler, you can get an iron plate from the bar owner you helped!
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
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 :)
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 remember seeing this game as a kid in a magazine when it was out, and was amazed by the review and the quality it got. Wanted to play it so bad but only owned a PS1 back then, later on, when I finally got a PS2 I forgot about it, only one day I came across it on PSP and finally took the chance to play but unfortunately couldn't finish it. All of that to say I'm glad I discovered this channel and finally "got closure" on it, big respect for getting all the endings, it must have been a huge amount of work and hours of play. Great video, nice game, and masterpiece VA, especially this part 31:05 with Hugo, lmao!
This video has become my favorite thing to watch before I go to bed. In the beginning I enjoyed reminiscing about my experiences with a borrowed PAL version of the game back when it was released in Europe. Then I noticed how the narration is somewhat soothing (=/= boring!!!). And then I noticed that in the whole video there's no footage of the game that is super loud, screams or jump-scary. Plus: the time travel mechanic is interestingly interwoven with the plot of memories. So there... A lengthy comment that may as well have been a thumbs up. Oh well...
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.
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”
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.
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"
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.
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 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
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
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.
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_Mtvtks There are mods for this game?
@@olivercharles2930 Apparently. Lol.
@@KyanoAng3l0_Mtvtks different voice actors.
48:07 Eike: "I know what I am doing."
*Eike did NOT know what he was doing.*
"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
That drunk driver ending is the most amazing thing I've ever seen in a video game. 10/10
One of my first deaths in this game was going back in time and touching Eike in the cafe, creating a time paradox
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
Ending D gives a pretty good explanation of why Eike is such a doofus with seemingly no past.
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 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
This is now my favorite channel. I binged all of your videos. It was the most calming experience I ever had.
i honestly feel like only a writer on suikoden could come up with such a complex story with so many variations in the story. Amazing.
The ending where Ike just throws the philosopher's stone at Homunculus reminds me so much of the Cod ending of Neir Automata
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
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.
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.
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.
FUN FACT
If you travel back in time at the beginning of the game, you can see yourself asleep at the bar. If you touch the other you, because of the impossibility of having 2 Eikes in 1 universe, everything is destroyed.
complete destruction speedrun
That sort of logic never made sense
It really doesn't. The fact you time travel back and find a younger you, even by a second means that the two pieces of matter are no longer the same
So you destroy the universe by touching yourself. And here I thought the worst thing that could happen was going blind.
jojo part 7
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.
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.
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
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!
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 👍
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!
Players: why is Eike like this
Eike: is German
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 wonder why nothing happens from 1939 to 1945.
Probably nothing important. Just a quiet, boring time where nothing happened.
Played it back then. It was interesting, also how Japanese people imagine life in an old German small town.
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!'
Between how pretty he is and the voice acting Eike seems like a complete himbo. Very good, very charming game.
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!
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…
Gotta love how homunculus dies
"Oh no... *AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA* _o-oooohhhhh~_ 😩😱"
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!
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
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
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.
14:00 Ok, that scene made me laugh out hard. I would have died if you added sitcom laughs at the end 😂
It is great how goofy Eike is.
Maybe I was a punk as a kid but this game always game me psychological thriller and there were times where i was terrified. One of my favorite games
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.
52:53 Eddie from SH2 is the drunk driver! That's some meta Konami shit.
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.
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!
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.
it's been 8 months and I have returned to say two things: good video, and Eike is kinda cute.
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
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 have fond memories from this game. It's funny, smart, convoluted, and even touching.
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 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.
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
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 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.
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.
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.
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!
it's cool that the creators made the familial characters look alike. modern dana and hugo look like siblings, margerette has brown hair and looks like her mom. dana calling eike dad makes sense because he is in fact her dad. but eike sucks as a dad for losing his daughter and forgetting what she looks like immediately.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 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.
Even if I don't find this game suited to a playthrough myself, I appreciate the creativity that existed in the PS1 & 2 generations when niche titles with genuine creativity seemed more common than today. Games have now approached monolithic categories of familiarity and I find value in the uniqueness and creative idiosyncrasies of titles like these. Thanks for sharing! :)
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
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
Him just chucking the stone at the homunculus was hilarious
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
That's my bedtime channel now, just chillin
Excellent. Love to hear it
i always loved this game such a unique experience. homunculus is one of my favourite video game characters.
Still better than Life is Strange
Thank you for making these videos, exteremly entertaining and it reminds people about older games or introduces them to these old gems!
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.
Eike is probably me if I ever got the chance of time travel
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
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.
captivating narration, immaculate vibes, great humor, weirdass obscure game - yep, must be another banger Dungeon Chill video
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 😊
Love to see people cover this slept-on game. One of my first PS2 games and still a very memorable time.
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!
I hope to use my channel to bring attention to games like this - it's one of my favorites!
Regarding Eike trusting Homunculus, its because Homunculus helped him avoid his death. By sending him to that point in time, he helped Eike get info to shock Eckart and break the vase.
Jugglery isnt the costume, but the stuff you juggle he go after putting the costume on! : D
Also, not sure if you know this - writing this while watching, - but you can beat Chapter 4 immediately. If you clear Chapter 2 after meeting the juggler, you can get an iron plate from the bar owner you helped!
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
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 :)
Not even five minutes in and I'm already sold on this game being a worthwhile gem.
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.
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
I remember seeing this game as a kid in a magazine when it was out, and was amazed by the review and the quality it got. Wanted to play it so bad but only owned a PS1 back then, later on, when I finally got a PS2 I forgot about it, only one day I came across it on PSP and finally took the chance to play but unfortunately couldn't finish it. All of that to say I'm glad I discovered this channel and finally "got closure" on it, big respect for getting all the endings, it must have been a huge amount of work and hours of play. Great video, nice game, and masterpiece VA, especially this part 31:05 with Hugo, lmao!
This video has become my favorite thing to watch before I go to bed. In the beginning I enjoyed reminiscing about my experiences with a borrowed PAL version of the game back when it was released in Europe. Then I noticed how the narration is somewhat soothing (=/= boring!!!). And then I noticed that in the whole video there's no footage of the game that is super loud, screams or jump-scary. Plus: the time travel mechanic is interestingly interwoven with the plot of memories.
So there... A lengthy comment that may as well have been a thumbs up. Oh well...