#diesirae

A bunch of Nazis with superpowers are trying to bring about apocalypse on Earth. At least this is how I perceived it after playing the first route. Essentially, this is the premise, but don’t bother trying to make too much sense of it, because there are too many layers and you will only understand more as as the routes unfold.

There are four routes - Kasumi, Kei Sakurai, Marie and Rea - and you should play them in this order as it would make more sense if you do so.

It deals with a lot of unexplained phenomena, so you will just need to accept what you see at face value.

The unfolding scene shows 1945 Berlin (World War II). Here you would be introduced to most of the baddies of Dies Irae. Apart being able to fly, chief baddies Reinhard Heydrich and Karl Kraft also order their superpowered Nazi subordinates to kill everyone in Berlin. Yes there is a reason why they did this, but you won’t really find out why until the end of the routes.

So after killing everyone, the chief baddies take three of their most powerful surbordinates and disappear into the sky. The massacre is part of a ritual they must conduct in order to gain strength. They reappear 50 years later, in modern day Japan, to complete the ritual, and this is when you get introduced to our protagonist, Ren Fuji, your average high schooler.

Sidenote: The baddie team call themselves members of the Longinus Dreizehn Orden, and they occupy certain positions in the order’s Obsidian Round Table. Each of the 12 members  also has two different names -  their real name and a bestowed name that’s a real pain to pronounce. They tend to introduce themselves like this: “I am badass-mythical-name, Number __ of the Longinus Dreizehn Orden Obsidian Round Table.”

You can imagine why Ren seems to be very confused when all these baddies start appearing out of thin air, exhibiting superhuman powers and talking about killing people and other mumbo jumbo.

On top of it all, Ren himself has been having strange dreams of a girl and a guillotine. Turns out that..small spoiler ahead...he has been singled out and forced to become one of the members of the Orden. Thus he suddenly finds himself bestowed with a super power - the power of the guillotine.

Here is when things start to become interesting and you see his friends Shirou Yusa, Kasumi, Ellie and Rea get dragged into the strange events happening in the city, and eventually the motivations of the baddies are revealed.

In gist, the entire city is about to be massacred and Ren has to save it.

I can understand why some people really found it frustrating and boring though. If you are used to newer visual novels and their narrative layout, there is A LOT of text to read, and it sometimes covers the ENTIRE SCREEN, resulting in the visuals being impeded. Oftentimes this can get really tiring on the eyes, plus the text is often deeply philosophical, heavy and bewildering at times. The narrative is very grandoise as well, and there is a lot of emphasis on the phenomenon of “foreknowledge”, which is the entire reason why the “massacre” is taking place. The baddies think that history repeats itself and all humans have sealed fates and they are trying to break the cycle.

There is also quite a bit of foreshadowing and mention of certain events, which make you anticipate the unveils later. Each member also has a certain spell, which they chant in order to activate/enhance their super power. This can get quite repetitive,as there are a lot of fights, but the spells are quite mesmerising and poetic, which are quite enjoyable to listen to.

All the characters are also well developed and you will empathise with them as you learn more about them. Even the bad ones, like Rusalka Schwagerin and Valerian Trifa . Essentially, putting aside all the supernatural stuff, this is a poignant story about trying to preserve your humanity and realize your desires in a world where all odds seem to be against you.