Quote Originally Posted by TheAbominatrix View Post
Oh christ, the orphanage plot twist was the WORST. I was trying so hard to enjoy the game and get into the story, hoping that all would soon be made clear... then they tried to unload that on me. "So... you all knew each other as children. And then you forgot. But now you are all together!"
Sadly a lot of people hated the orphanage thing, but I loved it. I like the idea of characters having a bond before they become friends, and while they attributed the memory loss to a magic phenomenon (the GFs), but to be honest such a thing can happen in real life without reason, we forget various chapters of our lives, but when confronted with them again years later they suddenly resurface and we wonder how we could have possibly forgotten them. While we see the things that remind us of the forgotten memory (in this case being reunited with the faces from our past) we may feel that somehow we are supposed to feel something around them, but until the lost memory is recovered we have no idea what the feeling is, but then we realize it's nostalgia.

I really love how they foreshadowed it, they did it so a casual gamer wouldn't notice the first time around, but when the game is played again we see signs that these characters have met before. They don't ram it down our throats by having Irvine say things like "Hey, haven't I seen you before?" because it would be really cheesy then. They let us find out the twist then replay the game, and see how he acts around them; first he acts like he's expecting them to recognise him, then he becomes subdued, assuming them not to be his friends, just people with the same names, however, when he sees Edea he starts to suspect them again, and waits until he can say it, it's hard for him to put it into words, but he gets there when the moment is right. It's a lot better writing than people give it credit for, I respect your opinion though, but I've always had a spot for uncovered memory stories, especially now for a kind of silly reason.