- Pronouns
- He/Him
My thoughts are
a mishmash of metaphysics. 
No joke, when I was done with the game I went out to Sonic The Burgerhog, ordered a Reeses Blast, and sat on the edge of the parking lot for an hour watching traffic go by and reading up on all the supplemental lore because I was equal parts enthralled and confused. Some of the stuff the Red Girls said had me thinking the androids were actually created by the machines and that everything was a ruse?? But I misunderstood, apparently the ruse was that the machines were deliberately prolonging the war by not wiping everyone out, so they could collect enough combat data to foster their own evolution (and the part about the humans being long dead and the androids being tricked about it for sake of "morale" was, in fact, done by the androids themselves). Even Pascal's village was an experiment by the machines to see what would happen if they were disconnected from the network and allowed to evolve on their own. The fact that what happened in the absence of the machines network (much like with the absence of humans for the androids) was eventual sentience and a desire for peace and tranquility, is an incredible theme to uphold. And the damage came from the hubris of the command on either side, androids and machines both. Because of the meddling of the entities moving the chess pieces, all my favorite secondary characters of both species died. Painfully. And that is not zesty.
And all of this, all of this taking place in the haunting setting of the city ruins, a place that really felt like an old world being reclaimed by the earth, really drives home that feeling that we're looking at an earth that lives and moves on past humans. Especially now that even the pods are becoming aware and ex[e]rcising choice, after a whole game spent slowly realizing the self-awareness of the machines, it gives this weird sort of hope that even the wake of so much death the very concept of life and consciousness will continue in many forms (Ian Malcolm would be proud). Even though we were gone, the things we created took on lives of their own, both figuratively and literally. Earth's primary native inhabitants are now androids, which won't seem so unnatural if you consider that we're also just really advanced machines of a different material. In time their societies will look at their circuitry and systems in the same way we look at our organs and nerves, as being naturally occurring, after the stories of then being "created" fall into mere legend. It's not like the stuff the androids were built from wasn't native to earth (as far as I know, anyway. I have yet to play Replicant), so they have every right to be considered "natural" life forms of the planet.
Also the flight units were rad as fuck
No joke, when I was done with the game I went out to Sonic The Burgerhog, ordered a Reeses Blast, and sat on the edge of the parking lot for an hour watching traffic go by and reading up on all the supplemental lore because I was equal parts enthralled and confused. Some of the stuff the Red Girls said had me thinking the androids were actually created by the machines and that everything was a ruse?? But I misunderstood, apparently the ruse was that the machines were deliberately prolonging the war by not wiping everyone out, so they could collect enough combat data to foster their own evolution (and the part about the humans being long dead and the androids being tricked about it for sake of "morale" was, in fact, done by the androids themselves). Even Pascal's village was an experiment by the machines to see what would happen if they were disconnected from the network and allowed to evolve on their own. The fact that what happened in the absence of the machines network (much like with the absence of humans for the androids) was eventual sentience and a desire for peace and tranquility, is an incredible theme to uphold. And the damage came from the hubris of the command on either side, androids and machines both. Because of the meddling of the entities moving the chess pieces, all my favorite secondary characters of both species died. Painfully. And that is not zesty.
And all of this, all of this taking place in the haunting setting of the city ruins, a place that really felt like an old world being reclaimed by the earth, really drives home that feeling that we're looking at an earth that lives and moves on past humans. Especially now that even the pods are becoming aware and ex[e]rcising choice, after a whole game spent slowly realizing the self-awareness of the machines, it gives this weird sort of hope that even the wake of so much death the very concept of life and consciousness will continue in many forms (Ian Malcolm would be proud). Even though we were gone, the things we created took on lives of their own, both figuratively and literally. Earth's primary native inhabitants are now androids, which won't seem so unnatural if you consider that we're also just really advanced machines of a different material. In time their societies will look at their circuitry and systems in the same way we look at our organs and nerves, as being naturally occurring, after the stories of then being "created" fall into mere legend. It's not like the stuff the androids were built from wasn't native to earth (as far as I know, anyway. I have yet to play Replicant), so they have every right to be considered "natural" life forms of the planet.
Also the flight units were rad as fuck
Kinda..? I had a hard time for a while wrapping my head around a lot of the systems and navigation and stuff, and I was not super dextrous during fighting for a long while so I died a lot, so Route A probably took me about a month and a half or so to get through. I was also doing a lot of sidequests (once I got the hair bow from one I became very interested in doing quests, hoping for more accessories
), and taking my time exploring the land. But once that was done, Route B was a cinch (I wasn't concerned with exploring/quests, and most of the boss fights were removed) that I burned through in.. I think two days? And by then I was so comfortable with the combat that I was seeking fights for fun and ended up probably overleveled, because by the time I started Route C I was burning through enemies and bosses incredibly fast without hardly needing to take a healing consumable.So ass was really only hauled for like, this week.
Which is nutty in contrast to how slowly I was moving through it last month.
