Machina is interesting. From what I understand, he's 17, but grew up in a village where everyone else was massacred, so he doesn't remember about 15 of those years except time with Rem. And she's dying, so he's trying to function with all of these motivations that he doesn't understand because he can't remember, and when she dies he will essentially lose the vast majority of his memories, because most of the people he's ever known will be dead. So he clings to that, hard and essentially is brain damaged by the lack of memories. The surprise is not that this happens. it's that is doesn't happen more often.
. I don't quite buy that this is a functional society, because you would end up with a lot of people motivated by stuff they can't remember. One thing I was really hoping they would do was have Mother die, and Class 0 can't remember most of their lives. Something very Hojo-ish about naming them all after playing cards. But they didn't do that, because of who she is.
Seven, King, and Queen was my favourite team. My crew ranged from Level 22-27 by the end. The trials are good, they're doable but just tricky enough
"I must fight to protect... somebody? What am I doing again?"
"Wait, why do we have an extra room in the house?"
"I don't remember why I'm in this military academy, screw it, I'm going home."
It ends up a little like Valkyria Chronicles, where so much is plagiarised from WW2 that it becomes very funny at times. Gee, where did the Militesi uniform design come from?
So there have been 600,000,000 cycles where usually Class 0 become L'Cie and die fighting the horde or Rursan (yes, I picked that option first). Eventually, they break the cycle and kill the Judge...okay
Final bossfight is great, takes a while to realise you're invincible. Good storytelling. I understand there is a happy ending on playthrough 2, but it feels more appropriate to have Rem and Machina come on the giant pile of corpses. Great game, surprised this isn't talked about more.
