[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by Elvin

^Don't agree that the chaos was the fault of the writer(s?) not being able to bring it all together. I'm sure the entire story outline's typed out in full somewhere in someone's harddrive.
I've said this before but I'll say it again. As a crappy writer hobbyist, I can tell you that it takes skill to be able to bring that much emotion out of a reader on purpose (be it admiration or rage) and balls of steel to end it how he did. Try even imagining something up that comes close.

I really disagree with the bold statement: writing a story like this ought to reveal the truth no matter the fashion, even in a silly way. Denying the tidbits of information that make the puzzle clear is by no mean an act of courage, but rather asinine.

Originally Posted by GundamAce

In the original version of the game, Director Takumi Nakazawa admitted, "Not all of the information is presented." His assessment was that it was an unfinished work, and that people, "Would have to resign themselves and accept the information they were given." The cause, apparently, was, "I was not happy with the ultimate result, but it was too late to change it." "The fact that the truth had to be hidden was inevitable from the beginning." Again, he stressed the importance of seeing all 33 endings (31 of them being bad endings) to gain as much information as possible. "I understand this is unreasonable.", and to compensate for this, announced that a timeline of the Infinity series would be included in the PSP limited edition version of the game, attached to the walkthrough in a pamphlet in said version.

Nakazawa said, "It's in order to get those who played the PS2 version (the first release of Remember11 was on the PS2) to complete the story." He prepared the PSP version not only for new players on the PSP, but for disgruntled fans who bought the PS2 version. After taking into consideration those players, Nakazawa decided that the best way to assist these players was in the form of a timeline. Furthermore, he took several members of the staff into consideration, several who had different opinions on what the real truth was.

I have no idea if I should simply shrug it off, facepalm or get angry. While it is nice to see the director himself admitting flaws of the story, it is really a wonder why they didn't bother at all, be it with the original release or the PSP release (be it delivering the complete work with the PS2 release, or improving the port version of the PSP considering it is release 5 years later).
Instead of offering a complete story, they deliver a unfinished one and use the mystery card in order to get away with that. I say this because depending of the genre, such device is impossible to setup without any real backlash (A conventional detective novel would turn its fanbase dead angry if the author doesn't include the "solution" sequence and the arrestation of the culprit, a romance driven novel would be considered foul play if a non triangle couple just doesn't go on after a certain point etc).
I can understand Nakazawa for not liking the final result, but was he really satisfied with an unfinished work? I really doubt that and I wonder if he imagined the readers' point of view, especially we do -not- have all information unlike him.

Suffice to say, the fact he and the other staff members were sharing a different opinions about the truth is just a clear indication that the project was way too ambitious for them: if they can't create a very "truth" basis and work the mystery from there together, that is a gigantic issue in term of scenario management and consistency.

Anyway, I can't say if I would be really satisfied with a timeline: that would certainly shed light on what happened with R11 (although I'm more interested with the AFTERMATH of the true ending), but I can't help but consider it as cheap, since it is like reading a plain walkthrough instead of having the plot narrating the missing elements.


@Forsaken:

Spoiler for Remember 11 spoilers:

I think it's because she has DID. Even the real Keiko acted differently at times (compare when she played with Yuni, flirted with Satoru, killed the rat)

I never questioned the fact Keiko herself could have been afflicted by DID. In fact, I really doubt Keiko could fool people that easily to the point she is stuck in SPHIA (although SPHIA purpose by itself isn't really convincing either).
The real problem I see is that it is never mentioned, even indirectly, that "Hotori" was acting differently: as in, there is no way for Kokoro to imagine Hotori with Keiko's personality, and vice versa for Satoru.

Considering the bad end where Satoru is stabbed in the third area by "himself", we know that Enomoto is actually the real Satoru, who didn't look like the most mentally healthy one out there (he's eager to try to kill his own self).
Enomoto's face when he pulled out the knife didn't look like normal as well. I think he's just a maniac who enjoy killing people with knife.

Except that it was also portrayed that both "original Satoru" and Enomoto put a lot of efforts in this project. This is a plan that cannot end with a failure, and any obstacle will be removed.
Therefore, it just doesn't make sense for Enomoto to walk around: that could very well backfire at him (which ultimately did).

The rampage can be explained as the result of the trauma caused by the crash.
It's the real Keiko that shouldn't be in a rampage, she is a calculating murderer, not a berserker.

I say that Keiko could very well go on rampage if we imagine another personality representing a pure result of killing urge etc. It was portrayed in the game that the personality of Keiko is somewhat "restrained" to what she truly can be.
However, it doesn't work with Hotori at all: that wasn't the first time Hotori was transferring and she was basically stuck in Kali's womb before appearing in Keiko's body. I see little to no build up for the sudden outburst.

But Satoru never trusted her completely either. He just considered Keiko a bigger problem (for obvious reason)

I can understand that, but he completely sidetracked the fact that Kali could be one of the treated individual in SPHIA. He never questioned the odd information Kali was giving him, but rather took them for granted. Yet, her very evasive answers regarding himself didn't raise any question in his head. It is only her behavior regarding Keiko that sparked something which is a bit too much for someone who was trying to gather all information about himself.