#futureblessings

Wow I totally didn’t expect by choosing Impey I’d find myself in the middle of steampunk land! I’m getting me some books by Jules Verne! The Nautilus is actually the name of a submarine captained by Nemo in ‘20000 Leagues Under the Sea’. It looks like Code Realize creators took a lot of inspiration from his books

I love this game because of how each route delivers something unique that would be a shame to miss out on!

Impey’s afterstory involves the 1889 World Fair in Paris and is one of my favorites so far. It goes in very a different direction than the other stories.

I’m so glad to see Cardia and Impey working so closely together, and Cardia working so hard to expand her knowledge to become a worthy assistant to Impey. The scenes between her and Impey are just too cute!

The best scene of the entire game would definitely be this one!

In the darkest depths of the ocean, they find ‘marine snow’ which is organic debris continuously falling to the bottom of the ocean from upper layers of the water; when illuminated they look like snowflakes.

I’m a sucker for picturesque things like this that occur in nature like bioluminescence and diamond dust.

That Impey is a much better communicator than Van definitely scores him points. We see our heroes express their feelings for each other better and in a very healthy way.

These scenes are just so adorable! And we also get a bonus ‘aside’ from Lupin🥰

Any girl would be lucky to be loved by Impey! He is so positive and happy and optimitistic and is obviously bringing less baggage into the relationship!

I’m feeling a bit of fatigue as I begin this route. There’s such a thing as too much romance!

Still there were a couple of cool surprise~

The whole story centers around Victor’s fear that he will no longer be able to protect Cardia from her poison once he dies, since Cardia is immortal and Victor, however brilliant, is only human. This is a fear that Omnibus, as the one who tries to foresee and prevent large-scale damage to the world, shares. She offers Victor an immortal life in exchange for joining Idea.

Being an Apostle of Idea means that Victor becomes an assassin who acts on the orders of Omnibus, killing anyone she sees as a threat to her vision of a peaceful and stable world. He struggles to make the right decision...

St-Germaine wasn’t relegated to an invisible, background character again. Although, since Cardia does not fall in love with him, St-Germaine is content to play the part of friend and confidante, risking his position in Idea and Omnibus’s trust to make sure that his friends live happily ever after.

Lupin’s gang also returns to help Victor and Cardia fight Idea and convince this organization that there is a chance the world will not descend into chaos like Omnibus predicts.

I enjoyed how this route confronts the issue of Cardia’s immortal life, which Impey and Van’s route comfortably turns a blind eye on (although Impey is a vampire so perhaps his natural life is considerably longer than that of Van’s).

Van’s love for Cardia is what rescues him from a life filled with loss, guilt, and regret. The bloodshed in his past is a constant nightmare he lives with. Falling in love with Cardia loosens the noose around his neck and allows him to dare to imagine an alternate future for himself. At first he fights against his feelings and concentrates all of his energy into seeking revenge on Finis. He rejects his love for Cardia and fills his heart with every painful memory from his past, making him (as we have seen) vulnerable to Aleister’s manipulations. 

This is my favourite moment from Guardians of Rebirth:

When sorrow and hatred were all he felt, Van vowed to seek revenge, but once Finis and Aleister are dead, he realizes that he never considered what he would do were he to succeed in his goals. For the first time in a long time he doesn’t know what to do with his new life. All he can think of is Cardia who stayed with him through one of the hardest parts of his life, so he pours everything into making Cardia happy. 

He takes her shopping, takes her out for romantic dinners, remembers to praise her beauty, and always comes back to her at the end of the day and plays the roles of a man who is content with what he has in his life. He wants a normal life for Cardia and himself and does everything he can to make this wish come true. 

Yet his efforts backfire...and he gets exactly what he desires. 

What’s more normal than a little misunderstanding between a couple? What’s more normal than two people who love each other having a ‘lover’s spat’ (as Impey so endearingly puts it) only to make up with a little change in perspective and the help from some friends?

Van’s after-story might seem a bit anti-climactic, but it’s a very sweet and realistic story. 

Another memorable moment for me is this:

I love how Impey and Lupin comes to Van’s aid and helps him understand what Cardia might be feeling. Van also finally acknowledges Impey, comes to respect him, and opens up to him and Lupin (friendship, yay!). It really does go to show that he is truly prepared to put his past behind him! 

And the final scene is just...

The last story I finished was that of the St. Germaine route, so the first scene I saw in Future Blessings was of St. Germaine soaked in blood, gasping for breath, expressing so much pain and sorrow in his words.

Then, I hear another voice--calm and collected--speaking to him. The details of their conversation leads me to wonder when this is happening--how long after the events of the first game does this exchange take place? Or does this occur before the first game? Is the calm, detached speaker another apostle? Friend or foe?

Quickly, I realize that this is a memory...

The flashback concludes and in a monologue St. Germaine recounts how he fell in love with Cardia; a cute scene where our heroes bicker lovingly follows, and we learn that they are headed for France.

Something in this particular route is absent in the others: the sense of adventure and exploration--the world is expanded far beyond just Steel London and time reaches back thousands of years into the past. St. Germaine takes Cardia abroad, to Paris, and as we see them venture outside of their familiar environment, we see their characters develop and become different versions of themselves. Saint-Germaine offers her these new experiences while Van, Victor and Impey seek only to shelter and spoil her. (At least at the end of the first game, this is what I thought! I haven’t played the other routes in Future Blessings yet!)

I love when the POV shifts so that we can see the world through St. Germaine's eyes, and we see everything that he is doing for Cardia and for himself, so that he can always be with her.

I love seeing him watch her. Each word he says is full of his love for her.

He says: "Her world grows larger...and she can shift her attention to the outside..."

Here he is thinking of how outgoing Cardia has become. She seeks connection with humans more readily than before and becomes fast friends with nearly everyone...