Part 209: Escape: AB Room
It looks like we're going to be escaping the
VLR OST: [Ambidexterity]
Here's a nice familiar tune.
Okay, how did this one go again?
Oh, I think we needed that poster...
This is our past, remember?
That means we're just repeating history.
You see what I'm getting at?
The password for the safe should be the same one we got earlier?
Exactly! Now hurry up and open it!
Okay, but at least--
Right now I'm leaning toward idiot!
The password for the safe is—
Right, right, the same password it was when we did it the first time.
Then hurry up!
Fine.
We figured it out last time.
Jesus christ, game, we get it.
I think I've mentioned before that safe passwords are generated when you start a new game and remain fixed after that. That's how you can cheat at rooms, if you want to do that for some reason. I mean, like, other than the fact that Sigma can canonically cheat at rooms himself, anyway, as we are literally doing right now.
Anyway, all this stuff is still in our Archives, so we can just go bring up the password and get rolling.
Okay, it's...
No! That's the wrong password!
We need the other one to get the key!
Oh. Whoops.
Hang on... how come there's no Gold File in here? We haven't gotten it yet... have we created a time paradox?
Good work!
Hurry up and grab the cracker!
...Cracker?
Aah! Damn, I meant key!
How the hell...?
Just shut up and do it!
I think I remember something about the fire extinguisher though--
We have the key, open the door!
No, just let me--
Can you even hear me?!
Okay, fine.
For God's sake, just do it already!
No need to yell.
All right!
Good. Looks like that worked.
What do you think...?
I know, I know. I don't need to ask every time, right?
Then why the hell are you asking?! Hurry up and—
Right! Right! I'm going, I'm going!
Ten! Nine! Eight!
One! Done!
Bite me! You were taking too long.
We're on a schedule here!
Ugh...
Since we didn't get a File this time, I figured this might be a good time to complain a bit more about how the secret files sometimes just straight up spoil things for no good reason, and sometimes are just complete garbage.
Here's one from the Laboratory:
JUMPYDOLL:
Why would you do this? As it happens, the "official" reveal of what we now know this refers to isn't very far ahead of this file in the route involved, but between then and it sits a plot lock you probably won't get past until quite late in the game. This thing is a giant glaring klaxon and a flashing sign that reads "HEY GUYS AKANE IS IN THIS GAME", at a time when there's absolutely no reason to start someone suspecting that, and worse, the file doesn't even really impart any interesting advice or knowledge.
This is actually a favourite trick of the game; to directly refer to events that are going to happen later in some route by giving you a secret file earlier in the route that talks about it. But it just seems like instead of nice foreshadowing and flavour they just... spoil things.
On which note, these two files came from Q:
Tenmyouji and Alice:
Tenmyouji and Clover:
This, on the other hand, is more like what I feel the secret files ought to have been in the first place - an opportunity to look back on times where big reveals were foreshadowed, and clarify things. Most people will probably have forgotten stuff like Clover and Tenmyouji's occasional asides that neither of them comment upon. And it's also a good chance to do things like expound on people's reasons for unexpectedly picking Ally or Betray in past AB Games. Alas that these two jump the gun just slightly; Q is the last chance the game has to hand you a file, but it also comes right before this particular reveal is made really blatant.
Alas also at the lack of proofreading. "The the" aside, what the hell is a purple door? I think this is supposed to refer to one of the Magenta/Green paths.