Amnesia:Memories: The Spade Route (SPOILERS!)

Although I've not been writing about Amnesia:Memories this week, I've been glued to it and managed to polish off the four main routes already. This game is getting more engrossing by the route, and I will most certainly miss it once I clear the Joker Route, which I'm currently exploring. But we're not there yet. For now, let's concentrate on Ikki!

The Spade Route was quite different from the Heart Route in terms of narrative logic. Unlike the Heart Route, the Spade Route didn't offer me an enormous and conveniently obvious clue on a silver plate to let me know what memories I was missing and how to retrieve them. Ikki was also significantly harder to decode than Shin, and his feelings and intentions toward me were murkier. As a result, my first run ended up on two of the three bad endings, which was not exactly encouraging.

This opening run led me first to the "I'll get rid of those who hurt you" ending. This is a 'branching path' type of ending that is triggered by a single answer, regardless of everything that happened before, so it's actually quite easy to avoid once you know the crucial dialogue choice leading there. Since I didn't know, I fell prey to that ending and had to joy of witnessing my own demise at the hands of Ikki's crazy fan club members. My, what a chilling outcome! I was expecting to be murdered by Ukyo again, so this came as a total surprise. How many psychopaths are hovering around me, exactly? Anyway, I reloaded my last save file presto and kept playing, and unearthed the "I wanted us to live together" ending at the end of that first playthrough. Not too surprising, given that I had been instinctively odious to Ikki from the get-go. Still, getting two bad endings in a row stung a bit.

But I was not going to give up, oh no. I stood up, brushed myself off and started a second run in which I tried my hardest to be nice to Ikki. My efforts paid off and I unearthed the normal ending. Victory! Well, not quite. To be honest, I really couldn't fathom what memories I was still missing, let alone how to reclaim them. The only vague clues I had were the message about a report that was sent to me early on, Ikki's proposition to live together and that mysterious three-months deadline. No matter how I tried to piece these elements together, that was not enough to give me a clear idea of what I was supposed to do to get the much-coveted good ending.

I thus decided to resort to a different tactic, namely to monitor the parameter gauges closely and use them to guide me. This hadn't been necessary in the Heart Route because the logic there was so blatantly obvious, but this extra help was now becoming mandatory. My goal was to keep the Suspicion Gauge at its lowest while trying to max up the Affection and Trust Gauges, and I engaged in a assiduous micro-management campaign in which I saved before every dialogue choice, picked an answer and checked the gauges afterwards to see their evolution. I then loaded my save file, picked the other available answer(s) and checked the gauges again, and then loaded my save file again and selected the answer that had wielded the best result in terms of parameter increase. That may sound utterly boring, but it was actually immensely fun. I was surprised more than once by the 'best' choices, and was surprised even more when I finally discovered the ultimate plot twist of the Spade Route as the result of all my hard work. Gee, I knew that this mysterious message about a report was important! This was the prelude to the good ending, which saw me move together with Ikki while getting partially rid of the fan club clique. Only partially, mind you, because they are still hovering around him like hungry vultures around carrion. I guess nothing is ever perfect, in otome games like in the real world! Oh, well.

Elated and enboldened by this resounding success, I decided to hunt for the last ending of the Spade Route, namely the "Not bad, God" bad ending. Since rebuffing Ikki had led me to one ending already, I figured out that the requirements for getting the third bad ending had to be different, and my guess was that they revolved around the Suspicion Gauge. I had tried my hardest not to rouse suspicions about my amnesia during my previous runs; but this time around, I went for suspect behaviour full force and gave entirely dubious answers that made the Suspicion Gauge burst at the seams. The result was drastic: Ikki confronted me about my conduct, and went in a rage upon learning that I had not confided in him despite having amnesia. He sprouted a bunch of lies and threatened me before chasing me out of his room, and that was the end of both our relation and the run. Third bad ending successfully uncovered!

Since I was at it, I decided to uncover the second bad ending of the Heart Route. I though that being cold to both Shin and Toma would do the trick, but to my utter surprise, this behaviour generated the normal ending again. This unexpected outcome led me to the conclusion that I had to be cold to Shin and nice to Toma all the way in order to get that second bad ending. This was the only combination I had not tried, so it had to be the winning one, right? Well, I was not disappointed: it was the winning combination allright, and it led me to be murdered. By Toma. Seriously, game? I don't mind being murdered by random psychos like Rika or Ukyo, but always-nice, always-smiling big-brotherly Toma? That came as a shock, honestly. And indeed, it turns out that this adorable guy is actually the creepiest creep of them all—but more on that later. Suffice it to say that after witnessing that ending, I started having serious reservations about the Diamond route.

That's all for the Spade Route, fellow gamers! It was a challenging and fun route despite Ikki's irritating behaviour. I'll see you soon with my report about the Clover Route. Until then, thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!