Memento Mecha, Part 4: The Facts
13 Sentinels has an entire game mode dedicated to the gathering and analysis of story information, and for good reason.
If you're just jumping on board—or need to refresh your memory—check out the previous parts here:
Some quick notes before beginning: I will be taking care to avoid spoilers throughout this series, though there will be some broad plot descriptions of both 13 Sentinels and Memento as well as some discussions of early scenes. The specific gameplay mechanics that I will be covering are explained in the manual and shown to the player throughout the prologue. Finally, all images are screenshots from my copy of the game unless otherwise noted.
The Facts
The final game mode, "Analysis", is not foregrounded in any of the marketing material or box art. This may be because it seems less like an active "game" mode and more like an evolving library that populates as the player progresses through the game. However, as pointed out by Woolie Madden in his piece “The Brilliance of Analysis” (which in turn was part of an excellent compilation of "13 Creators, 13 Essays, 13 Sentinels"), this portion of the game is an absolutely crucial resource. I’ll be citing some of his ideas throughout this section, so I highly recommend watching the aforementioned video essay as well as his extremely entertaining playthrough of the game–that is after you’ve already beaten the game.
Let's do some quick math to illustrate why the Analysis mode is so important. 13 Sentinels took me roughly 30 hours to complete. This means that the game is about 15 times longer than Memento, a film which Mr. Madden agrees is built with the expectation of a second viewing. Unless someone knows what to look for, there is no way that they would be able to uncover every nuance of Memento’s mystery during their first watch. The Analysis mode seems explicitly designed to give players “the equivalent of that second viewing experience as you play [...] for the first time” (Madden), and this was confirmed in an interview with several members of the development team. Character animator Kouichi Maenou remarked that “while the player enjoys that feeling of information overload while playing the game, it’d be great if they could revise and further consider the information they had learnt; that’s how the ‘Analysis’ section was created” (“Developer’s Talk 1”).
The first half of the Analysis section is an extensive encyclopedia of "Mystery Files'' that gradually documents nearly every noun in the game. You read that right: almost every person, place, or thing gets an entry, even the food. This virtual Rolodex can be accessed from both the main menu and the Start/+ menu, meaning that the player can immediately check a name or face at a moment’s notice. There is a light element of "gameplay" to the Mystery Files in the form of player choice: as seen in the image above, some entries are unlocked by default, such as the file on the first playable character in 13 Sentinels. Others, including locations, certain side characters, and items must be unlocked via "Mystery Points" earned through the Destruction mode. Simply completing a battle will earn a single point, but completing optional objectives and earning an S rank can reward players with several more. The initial scarcity of points forces players to choose which files they want to unlock and in what order. Hoarders need not worry, though, as there are more than enough points earnable on Normal difficulty to unlock every single entry (I had 27 extra points upon finishing the game, which were then graciously converted to upgrade currency for my mechs).
The collection of Mystery Files bears some similarities to the Thought Cloud and Leonard’s system of notes (as covered in Part 2), but there is one key difference: Mystery Files are completely objective. In stark contrast to the aforementioned mechanics, they are uncolored by characters’ emotions. Mystery Files are carefully worded to reflect the information that players have learned thus far, which means that they only “lie” or “mislead” by omission. New sections will be added that supersede previous ones and bring players closer to the truth, but those earlier entries will never change retroactively. Viewed within the framework of Memento, Mystery Files more closely mimic the viewer’s gradual understanding of the truth that forks off from Leonard’s. Players learn things that exist or occur outside of individual protagonists’ narrow views of their own lives, the world and people around them, and even time itself.
The Event Viewer, which serves as the second half of the Analysis mode, offers similar insights into the game’s myriad mysteries. As one might expect from a theater feature, players have the ability to replay any scene up to the most recently completed chapter, but in 13 Sentinels, this includes sections that involve dialogue options—that is to say that players can actually re-play almost any previous scene. This is yet another way for the game to provide that “second viewing experience” even before the game has been completed. If the player would rather skim through the Event Viewer archive, each entry contains a brief summary of the scene as well as details regarding which protagonist(s) and side character(s) were present. Players can even sort by character and view where the events thus far fit into the objectively correct timeline. This essentially a condensed version of the “bible” used by the QA team during development, which was a massive Excel document that took up “30 sheets of A3 paper” (“Talking Spoilers”).
To demonstrate both the usefulness and the cryptic nature of the Event Viewer, let's consider the entry for the opening cutscene:
For context, this is the very first scene that the player sees upon starting a new save. After a few minutes of gameplay, we are granted access to the Event Archive, which reveals that we just witnessed Event No. 287: the start of the final battle. Just as Memento's first scene is the last event in its timeline—a haggard Leonard Shelby shooting Teddy in the head—13 Sentinels opens with the beginning of the end, as a young schoolgirl mysteriously summons a giant robot out of thin air, but while both establish an overarching mystery from the start, Memento’s more compact construction means that it can get away with leaving viewers to their own devices. After all, they can always rewatch the film. Out of sheer necessity, 13 Sentinels sets up its archives to be revisited and interrogated on a regular basis throughout a single playthrough. Whenever the player needs information, it will be there, waiting to be analyzed
The ways in which the three game modes work in concert is quite elegant: Remembrance provides a steady supply of plot points and character details while high scores and special objectives in the Destruction mode rewards the player with the points needed to unlock Mystery Files. This larger game loop of playing, learning, and reviewing incentivizes an almost scholarly study of 13 Sentinels' narrative—or, to paraphrase Mr. Madden, 13 Sentinels essentially gamifies the gathering and analysis of story information.
Join me next week for the fifth and final part: "Everything in Its Right Place"
Works Cited
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. Nintendo Switch version, Vanillaware, 2022.
“13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Double Helix – Developers’ Talk 1”, translated by Garm, Garm’s Translations, 21 Aug 2021. Originally published in Famitsu, 12 Dec 2019. https://garmtranslations.wordpress.com/2021/08/11/13-sentinels-aegis-rim-double-helix-developers-talk-1/.
“13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim – Talking Spoilers with Kamitani and the Cast”. Frontline Gaming Japan, 20 Feb 2020. https://www.frontlinejp.net/2020/02/20/13-sentinels-aegis-rim-premium-talk-event-report/
Madden, Woolie. "The Brilliance of Analysis". 13 Creators, 13 Essays, 13 Sentinels, uploaded by JayEm, 24 June 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnVEWEOrNI0. Accessed 10 June 2022.
Memento, directed by Christopher Nolan, performances by Guy Pierce, Joe Pantoliano, and Carrie Anne Moss. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2002. Limited edition DVD.