TissueBox
Member
I can't stop thinking about the finale of Branch E and the way the music in the credits explodes as you accept help from others.
I didn't think Taro was capable of such a moving, warm finale, but that whole bit after Pod 042 says that he rejects this outcome is so gripping and so uplifting, even as the music tells you that maybe it was all for nothing.
It seriously gets me my eyes to well up with tears. Over a fucking shoot em up credits sequence for fucks sake.
I just can't stop thinking about it.
I KNOW it was beautiful. *passes self around*
It's the perfect gut punch because here you are, just one little cursor shooting up a bunch of words but in the context of the pods' story and what's on the line, and that f*cking music, it's like...it makes sense that it would end this way, after the end, yet the hopelessness keeps on fighting ya 'til the very finish until you literally muster the 'weight of the world' to push it back. It's so minimalist yet also just so right in how it wraps up the themes of sacrifice and being alone and unending oppression...and man does it wrap it up with a soul-cleansing bang. That network element worked magnificently when all was said and done, at first I thought it was an adequate Souls gimmick, but lo the game had bigger plans.
One of the most effective earn-your-happy-endings I've felt in a while...when Taro wants to shine a light he'll go blinding people I guess. xD Of course it's still bittersweet. But as a result the efforts of the finale have that much more gravitas.