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The Silver Case [SPOILER THREAD] The Quest For The 50,000 Yen

cj_iwakura

Member
What follows is a spoiler thread for not just The Silver Case, but also the entire Kill The Past saga, especially Flower, Sun, and Rain.

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This is going to be a little different, though.

I'm going to attempt to go all Umineko on the plot of The Silver Case, and expose its guts.

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Here's some musical accompaniment.

Chapter 0: Lunatics

Tetsugoro Kusabi is attacked by an unknown gunman on the street, and narrowly avoids a bullet to the head.


The game never quite spells this out, but this entire chapter is about 'Killing the Past' of the Moonlight Syndrome saga. Namely the entire cast.

The gunman, Ryo Kazan:

The younger brother of Kyoko Kazan. They shared a bond with each other that far exceeded even the kinship of blood. The Kazan's were involved in an incest relationship with one another. Sumio, a close friend of Kyoko, had her killed, because he was jealous of the affection that Kyoko had for her brother.

Yayoi(who also appears in FSR) showed Ryo to the v.i.p. room of a night club called "Lost Highway". Sumio was in the backroom waiting for Ryo to show up. Yayoi handed Ryo a bag. Inside the bag was Kyoko's head. Ryo kept her head after Sumio was killed during a double homicide by an ex lover.

Ryo received a phone call from Kyoko shortly after he returned home. However this is impossible, because Kyoko is dead. It's around this time that Ryo's mind starts to twist & turn the reality around him little by little. (This eventually escalates into full blown madness by the time we see Ryo in Silver Case.)

Ryo can be seen holding Kyoko's severed head when he appears in the street.

The one who kills Ryo and then is killed by Kusabi:
http://www.paradisehotel51.com/K7SIN/toubapurfiru.jpg

Rumi Toba. I don't know a great deal about her, but presumably she has good reason to want him dead, and succeeds.


From here on out, TSC is the tale of Kamui Uehara... sort of.

Chapter 1


Having supposedly escaped after 20 years of incarceration, Kamui Uehara is wanted for the murder of three women. It turns out that the killer wasn't him, but his partner; Ayame.

Ayame murdered the three women, who each bore Uehara a child, out of jealousy.

Sumio apprehends Ayame, Uehara is taken back into custody, and the case ends, though Sumio continues to pine for his supposed lost love.

According to his nostalgic musings during the wedding chapter of FSR, his beloved was executed, so it's safe to say she died.



Chapter 2: Spectrum

This case is relatively straight forward, and anything that may not have been clearly spelled out is explained with extensive detail in the corresponding Placebo chapter.


Two childhood friends are tragically torn apart when one of them suffers a fatal heart attack after being pursued by a deranged man living in their building.


Koichi, seeking revenge, pursues the man responsible, who winds up dead after falling from the fourth floor of the Typhoon apartment complex. The main character eventually realizes that Koichi is indirectly responsible, thanks in no small part to the guidance of Hikaru's ghost.


The fact that the protagonist(here after referred to as 'Akira') can see ghosts is likely due in part that he was raised as a Shelter Kid and participated in the silver eye program.

Chapter 3: Parade

This is where things begin to get weird. It's very unlikely you'll understand the chapter completely in one playthrough due to how disjointed the storytelling is. Placebo explains it clearly, but prior to that, it's no surprise that it may baffle players.


During a stakeout, Sumio tells Tetsu a fairytale about a princess and her three protectors. It's no mere fairytale, but a parable for his own history. Sumio and three friends grew up in the city of Mikumo, which was subjected to a polluted river thanks to the actions of the Yukimura Syndicate.


Sumio and his two friends tried to protect the girl they grew up with from the violent protests, known as the Parade, but failed. As punishment for protecting the daughter of the Yukimura family, Sumio was deafened, and his other friends were blinded and muted, respectively. The villagers had been driven mad by the pollution, and believed the girl to be a witch. The boys were punished in a way as to no longer be influenced by her evil.


The trio spent twenty years planning their revenge. The blind man, Hiseki, was the one who blew up the Yukimura mansion. Then the mute man, Fuyuki, continued the plan by collecting the ransom for the kidnapped Yukimura. He then burnt it along with himself.

Sumio finished the plan by ensuring Yukimura would blow up the Snow Tower HQ, along with all the corporate brass of the Yukimura Syndicate. Lastly, to put Ril's soul to rest, he destroyed the village where it all began.

Tetsugoro, realizing that Sumio was the only surviving culprit, took his former partner into custody, and Sumio Kodai was ejected from the Heinous Crimes Unit.


The chapter ends on Tetsu reminiscing about when he met his serial killer-loving partner.

Years later, Sumio Kodai takes up a new name: Sumio Mondo, and begins a new job as a searcher... on Lospass Island, where you can forget about time.

If you need anything found... Sumio Mondo's your man.

sumiointro.JPG


Why is there a pink crocodile here? Does the hotel allow those?
Your breakfast is ready, Mr. Mondo.


Chapter 4: Kamuidrome

I HAVE NO FRICKING IDEA. Seriously. Good luck. Watch Serial Experiments Lain while plastered and that may make more sense than this chapter.


Sayaka Baian's death is the only straightforward event. The rest is a mystery. As far as I can tell, some hackers use Kamui Net's influence to bring down the city's electricity as a show of their power. Then they're never seen again.


Chapter 5: Lifecut

This chapter starts out as a total bloodbath, but eventually makes a morbid sort of sense. The whole Kamui Uehara madness started out as a scheme by Hachizuka(the 24 Wards mayor and Chizuru's grandfather) and a manipulative hacker named Nezu to remodel the 24 Wards and ensure their own immortality by creating Silver Eyes. Only Hachizuka succeeds, and uses his immortality to kill his son and pretend to be him, due to his newfound youth.


Uehara is gunned down on a rooftop due to a massive operation, but it likely makes no difference, as Kamui can transfer between different hosts... including Chizuru Hachizuka, a host for the Ayame strain.


She is gunned down by Sakura(a bit of karmic retaliation since she threatened Sakura during the rooftop operation), and dies pining for Morikawa, who was killed by Kusabi not long before.

(Not talking that shit now, are you?)

To ensure Kamui is stopped, Tetsugoro Kusabi winds up executing most of the Heinous Crimes Unit en masse, since most of them are working for the CCO/TRO(the civic/technical branches of the government). Suffice to say, his days with the force are numbered.


Nakategawa, also revealed to be a double agent, tries to kill Kusabi's informant(Munakata), and winds up dying instead.


Munakata's fate is unclear, but it's likely that he's protected by and/or working for Hachizuka.

By the end of the game, Tetsugoro seems to be working as an officer with Sakura and Mikoshiba, the only two officers left alive, who also don't seem to be controlled by anyone else.
(Edit: I've been told Mikoshiba is supposedly dead. Who knows how. The other officer at the end with Sakura is Kosaka from Chapter 3.)

Akira's fate is also unclear, and the reporter Tokio Morishima leaves the 24 Wards behind, rather than continue living on as influenced by Kamui.

He's clearly still haunted by ghosts, but will later appear on Lospass Island, with a silver eye.

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Several other major players are involved, but that summarizes the important things that tie into TSC... though the organization known as Elbow has a major role, as does a major player in the CCO/TRO, Sundance Shot.

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And at the end of FSR, Sumio may just encounter an old friend.

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I hope you've enjoyed this experience.

This has been a Suda 51 trip.
 
Great post, cj.

Man, when Parade ended I thought "this possibly can't get more cryptic". Boy, I was wrong.

Even though Kusabi is so entertaining, I gotta say that Tokio ended up being my favorite character. The Placebo chapters were most of the time used as exposition dumps, but some moments (the dialogue with the bartender) really shined.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Great post, cj.

Man, when Parade ended I thought "this possibly can't get more cryptic". Boy, I was wrong.

Even though Kusabi is so entertaining, I gotta say that Tokio ended up being my favorite character. The Placebo chapters were most of the time used as exposition dumps, but some moments (the dialogue with the bartender) really shined.

I think those moments and the ones with Erika were my favorite.



That bartender... haha, wow.


I think the ramifications for Tokio and what we know about FSR are kind of sad. He clearly left the Wards behind and now lives at Lospass.

He promises Erika that he'll return within Red's lifespan, so maybe they'll meet again. We can hope so.


Added more screens and background on the Lifecut bloodbath.

Another big mystery: is the other survivor of Republic still in a coma? Who knows.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Made a few updates, a fellow TSC obsessee on twitter corrected me:

A few things, that's Kosaka (Ch. 3) at the end w/ Sakura, not Mikoshiba. Natsume is still alive though he's officially "dead."

Don't ask me how.
 

Golnei

Member
Now that I've properly finished the game, I think it did a good job of laying out its narrative overall - in the end, nothing really demanded external explanation or seemed unintentionally ambiguous. Though dramatically speaking, there was something I wasn't quite sure if I liked with the final chapters, that being their tendency to follow up on great climactic scenes with actual endings that were quite a bit weaker. The interlude between the original and HD staff credits fell into that category, as well as the actual handling of the final scene in Placebo - though "THERE IS NO ESCAPE" / "Shut the fuck up." was a fantastic little exchange. (Speaking of which, leaving the original credits totally untranslated was a bizarre decision). And after the reveal of Nezu started solidifying things in a much more standard cyberpunk direction, the last conversation with Kusabi in the diner was a much appreciated tonal shift - more than anything else, that really reminded me of the way similar themes of reincarnation, rebirth and immortality were handled in killer7. (On another tangent, Morishima erasing his files was another sequence with a lot of impact - even aside from its visual presentation, some of the dialogue (which referenced the Placebo chapter names?) and the music, it was perfectly set up to pay off from the constant focus his computer received during that side of the story. I wonder if Ending D of Nier was directly influenced by it...)

Overall, I enjoyed it much more than I thought it would - the visual direction and unique method of storytelling considerably elevated what would have still been an engrossing story without it. And the cast ended up really working for me as well - Morishima ended up becoming my favourite as well, but a fair few of them either had interesting development or were just consistently enjoyable presences. Hopefully being spoiled on Flower, Sun and Rain won't dampen my potential enjoyment of it too much, I haven't played it yet and think I might move on to it next.

Though as I've said before, playing this really makes me want something new in the style of it or killer7, in terms of tone and subject matter. Even with a totally different setting, cast, plot and gameplay structure; the particular kind of direction, narrative development, atmosphere and style is something I'd love to see more of.

Also, is this supposed to depict Morishima during the events of the game? He seems way too well-built for his ingame depiction - I always imagined him to be really lanky underneath the coat - he barely leaves his apartment, and 90% of his diet is ramen, cigarettes and liquor, with a biannual fruit.


The Placebo chapters were most of the time used as exposition dumps, but some moments (the dialogue with the bartender) really shined.

The bartender was a pretty great character - his developing dynamic with Morishima was one of the central anchors of the Placebo storyline. I kind of want him to end up with Morishima instead of Erika...maybe they could have an open relationship?
 

cj_iwakura

Member
That's from 25 Wards, so I doubt it's Tokio. As for the original credits, maybe the style made them tough to translate.
 

Golnei

Member
That's from 25 Wards, so I doubt it's Tokio. As for the original credits, maybe the style made them tough to translate.

My mistake, I was distracted by the turtle and cigarette and didn't notice the 25 in the upper right corner. Though looking it up, 25 Wards did apparently have a "Placebo" storyline with him...

I guess it could have been too difficult to translate the credits, but it still seems odd when you compare the incredibly similar presentation between the credits of the untranslated original staff and English HD staff. Were any substantial changes made from the PS1 credits?
 

cj_iwakura

Member
My mistake, I was distracted by the turtle and cigarette and didn't notice the 25 in the upper right corner. Though looking it up, 25 Wards did apparently have a "Placebo" storyline with him...

I guess it could have been too difficult to translate the credits, but it still seems odd when you compare the incredibly similar presentation between the credits of the untranslated original staff and English HD staff. Were any substantial changes made from the PS1 credits?
Maybe that is Tokio, then? No clue, I know zilch about 25W. Hopefully we get it next... (That seems very, very likely. Suda seems excited to go the full nine.)


As far as I can tell, they're exactly the same.
PS1:
tumblr_nomh9fKUcH1skns5ho7_400.jpg

tumblr_nomh9fKUcH1skns5ho10_400.jpg
 
lol came into this hoping to get an in depth explanation for kamuidrone. the fuck was going on with that couple? So they shut down electricity? is that what happened when the countdown ended? and then it's never brought up again?
 

cj_iwakura

Member
lol came into this hoping to get an in depth explanation for kamuidrone. the fuck was going on with that couple? So they shut down electricity? is that what happened when the countdown ended? and then it's never brought up again?
Pretty much. Confused everyone. It's meant to be a setup for Kamui to perpetuate, I guess. Oh, and Kamui is referenced in FSR. Big time.
 

Clov

Member
Alright, so I just beat this, and there's still some stuff about the end I'm not sure about. Let me know if I got this right:

The Player Character is one of the shelter kids; they possess a silver eye and are meant to inherit the personality of Format Kamui. By killing Nezu, the player character can escape this fate.

However, afterwards in Lifecut, as well as in the epilogue, it seems as though they decided to become Kamui anyway. At least, that's how Kusabi and Munakata seem to describe it. The epilogue also implies that the player character is not truly the person meant to inherit Kamui, and someone else is out there now. Is that correct?

Also, who was Tokio talking to during the big exposition dumps in Hikari? I don't think that was ever made clear.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Alright, so I just beat this, and there's still some stuff about the end I'm not sure about. Let me know if I got this right:

The Player Character is one of the shelter kids; they possess a silver eye and are meant to inherit the personality of Format Kamui. By killing Nezu, the player character can escape this fate.

However, afterwards in Lifecut, as well as in the epilogue, it seems as though they decided to become Kamui anyway. At least, that's how Kusabi and Munakata seem to describe it. The epilogue also implies that the player character is not truly the person meant to inherit Kamui, and someone else is out there now. Is that correct?

Also, who was Tokio talking to during the big exposition dumps in Hikari? I don't think that was ever made clear.
Pretty sure that's the PC. I found some old message board posts at PH51 that have more detail and theories, I'll try to dig them up later.
 

Clov

Member
Pretty sure that's the PC. I found some old message board posts at PH51 that have more detail and theories, I'll try to dig them up later.

If that's the case, then the player character was asking Tokio to kill them. If they recognized how dangerous Kamui was, why did they decide to become Kamui?

Also, Yami seems to imply that Tokio killed the mayor, didn't it? That would make him the "Kamui" that was mentioned in the epilogue. Interesting detail...
 
I double dipped on the PS4 version after playing the PC one a few months ago. I must say that playing it twice in a short period of time made me understand the plot a lot better (everyone who is still confused about certain section of the game even after playing the placebo chapters should really replay each transmitter chapter after the respective placebo report. I know, it's a lot of repetition, but in my case it really cleared things up)

The new chapters are really short and basically fanservice for longtime Kill the Past fans. I do really hope that the whiteout chapter means we're getting 25th Ward next, and the Yami report is basically an introduction to Flower, Sun & Rain.

After finishing TSC again I immediately started again FSR. I only played it once in 2008 and I need to refresh my memories. But God, this game has some really obtuse game design choices. There's a reason I never replayed it since 2008 (actually I tried to start a new game several times during these years, but I never was focused enough to make it through the end)

I also have some doubts on the quality of the translation of FSR. I was shocked because I didn't remember FSR having a full Italian translation (I'm from italy) but I have many doubts about some translation choices. I hope that after we (hopefully) get 25th Ward, a full Remaster of FSR will be next, but it really needs a new translation and some QOL improvements to the general gameplay
 
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