My Lover Has Had a Hard Time: Amnesia: Memories-Ukyo Review

I can’t tell you how happy I am to be done with this game! It has been a long road to this point, and let me tell you, playing every route in a game is definitely a full time commitment. I have seen good, bad, and just plain ugly in this game, just to get to this point. So after watching Ukyo kill the MC with absolutely no warning what so ever in just about every bad ending of the game, I was a little curious about how his route would play out. I guess I was expecting some big character revelation or something, perhaps even a little explanation for his actions throughout the game…And you know what I got? Exactly that, this route is what is considered to be the canon route. Everything is explained, and I mean everything, the events of the other routes, Ukyo’s random bad endings, even Orion.

So, I landed every single bad ending this route had to offer (and there are SEVEN of them) before I could land even the normal ending. This route is not for the faint of heart, you really have to work to earn your happy ending!

*Side Note: I will not have an MC/Heroine section in this review…I feel that there just isn’t enough about her to fill an entire section in this game. I was actually really disappointed by the MC in this game.

Disclaimer: I don’t own these images, they belong to Idea Factory…and this goes without saying, but there will be SPOILERS under the cut…

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Feels Like the Whole World is Against Us

So, Ukyo’s route is only available after you finish all of the other character’s good endings (yes…even Toma’s route). If I had to sum up Ukyo’s route in one word it’d have to be, Tragic. The whole route is heartbreakingly tragic. In every other route in the game, Ukyo will kill the MC in the most random and over the top ways imaginable, but in his own route he spends the entire game trying to save the MC. That is if you decide to trust him. If you decide not to trust him…I really and truly hope you enjoy dying…because the death’s in this route are ridiculous! After reading this route in it’s entirety, I felt bad for the guy. I wanted to give him a big hug and tell him that everything was going to be all right! I think I actually forgive him for killing the MC so many times in the other routes. Hell, if I’d been in the same situation, I might have killed her myself!

SO MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!! (ALL TEXT IN RED)

I’M SERIOUS…MAJOR GAME SPOILING SPOILERS…

OKAY SO IF YOU’RE STILL READING THIS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ…IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS IGNORE THE RED PARAGRAPHS!

So in the Joker World on August 1st, the MC gets in an accident at the school caused by an explosion in one of the labs. The building catches fire and the MC gets trapped in the blaze, she survives, but remains in a coma until August 25th. On that day she dies without ever regaining consciousness. Ukyo her lover, is distraught and makes an impossible and selfless wish, he wishes for the MC to live. The god, Nhil hears his wish and moved by his grief decides to help him grant his wish. Nhil fuses with Ukyo and takes him to other parallel worlds where the MC is alive so that he can fulfill his wish. So all the reasons he was such a weirdo creep in the other worlds is because he was trying to fulfill his wish! However his world hopping is not without consequence. He and the MC can’t exist within the same world at the same time. Think Harry Potter and Voldemort…Neither can live while the other survives… So in each world one of them has to die, usually Ukyo just kills the MC, which causes him to develop a split personality. This nasty cycle continues on and on until Nhil, in a last ditch effort to grant Ukyo’s wish, reverses time in Ukyo’s original world so that the MC doesn’t die on August 1st. But by doing so Nhil causes a time paradox, and the world attempts to rectify it by killing off the MC. This causes the weird weather in every single world and it is the reason Orion bumped into the MC from the start. In the Joker World, the MC is a virus that the world is trying to purge itself of. So it’s up to Ukyo to use his knowledge from the other parallel worlds to save her from death. 

END OF SPOILERS!!!

In the Joker World, Ukyo is a photographer from Kobe. He and the MC met when she was there on a school trip. Ukyo had just returned to Japan after years of being abroad, the MC catches him crying outside of his old home and becomes interested in him. She attempts to approach him, but upon seeing that he is crying she stops herself. Ukyo notices her and tells her about his past. Smitten, Ukyo spends the remainder of the trip with her, even snapping a photo of her under the cherry blossoms for memories sake. A few months later he then moves to her town in hopes of meeting her again and confessing his feelings to her, but fate had other plans. Like Romeo and Juliet, their relationship is doomed from the start. But, when tragedy threatened to tear the pair apart, Ukyo made a desperate plea to the gods, sacrificing his own happiness for her own. This route explains everything and I mean everything! I almost felt bad for romancing the other characters (except Toma…I felt extremely dirty after that route) in the game, Ukyo and the MC are the OTP of the game. Ukyo has been in love with the MC from the first time he laid eyes on her, but circumstances always seemed to get in the way. Fate seemed to be hell bent on keeping them apart. In the beginning of the route the MC is constantly getting herself into accidents and each time Ukyo is there to keep her out of harms way. Orion speculates that perhaps Ukyo can predict the future. Ukyo dismisses that explanation, instead telling her that he merely “saw” the outcomes in a dream. He then warns the MC to avoid getting close to him, because he is dangerous. If you have gotten at least one bad ending in any of the other routes you know just how how much of an understatement that is. Yet our poor tragic heroine does not heed his warnings, instead she does the exact opposite and goes out of her way to get closer to him.

Ukyo has the unfortunate misfortune of having two distinct personalities, lets call them light Ukyo and dark Ukyo. Light Ukyo is a sweet, socially awkward loner, who just wants to save the woman that he loves.  While dark Ukyo, the coldblooded murderer we all know and love and wants nothing more than to survive by any means necessary. I sympathize with the guy, I really do, he has had to die some of the most gruesome deaths imaginable, not once, but several times. Only to have to repeat the same chain of events over and over again, until his wish can be granted. The whole route reminded me of the Shakespearean tragedy, Othello. He wants to to protect her, but in the end he is the one that winds up killing her. So I was extremely glad that in spite of all the tragedy and death, the two of them FINALLY got their happy ending!

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Do I Recommend His Route

I don’t think I can accurately sum up how tragic and wonderful this route was. This was definitely a fitting conclusion to Amnesia and I am extremely glad that I played through the entire game. This was well worth my money! Playing all of the bad endings in the game definitely helped me enjoy this route. In fact I highly suggest playing all of the bad endings from the other guy’s routes and the bad endings from Ukyo’s route BEFORE attempting to get the good ending. It makes the sweet ending that much more satisfying!

There were entirely too many Bad Endings in this route, so I made a table instead! 🙂

In the Good Ending, despite Ukyo’s warnings to stay away the MC winds up going to the school on August 25th and the lab explosion occurs leaving her and Ukyo are trapped. Dark Ukyo appears and attempts to kill the MC, but she appeals to his better nature and he stabs himself instead. The MC watches in horror as Ukyo begins to breathe his last breath, the clock strikes twelve and he happily proclaims that he finally got to fulfill his wish. As he dies the god Nhil appears and thanks a confused and grieving MC for helping Ukyo. Orion then explains that Nhil was drawn to Ukyo’s wish (to see the MC one last time) and exhausted his powers to see that it was granted. He fused with Ukyo and the two of them searched parallel worlds for one in which the MC was alive. But fate would not allow for Ukyo’s wish to be granted, resulting in him always having to die. So Nhil taking pity on Ukyo  brought him to the “World of Origin” (the only world in which he and the MC exist together) and rewound time so that he and the MC could have a chance at happiness. After explaining this Nhil asks if you forgive Ukyo for all that he has done. If you say yes, the two of you are returned to to Earth to live happily ever after. Orion and Nhil are punished for interfering in the human world.

In the epilogue Ukyo and the MC are out walking and enjoying themselves, when two boys call out to them. It would seem that the MC dropped her handkerchief, the screen pans out to reveal that the boys are Nhil and Orion. They were turned into humans as punishment for the events of the game. Only Ukyo recognizes them.

In the Normal Ending you don’t forgive Ukyo, and Nhil kills him. The MC wakes from the hospital with no memories of the incident at the school or Ukyo.

While this not my favorite route of the game, I did enjoy it! I’m glad that Ukyo’s actions throughout the game were finally explained, but it does not excuse the fact that dude killed the MC so many times before. That is just one thing I can’t quite forgive, and I’m glad that they didn’t magically erase his memories, I want Ukyo to suffer a little for what he did. I want him to suffer by staying with the MC forever… So my verdict, I definitely recommend this route, it was a fitting conclusion to Amnesia and you won’t be disappointed by it.

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More Amnesia Memories Reviews

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