I love how the story is told in this game.

[Enfys Ellezard]

The story in this game is extremely vague and is open to multiple interpretations. At a glance, this game looks like just another fancy and crazy game about a girl riding a motorcycle.

But when you add in the narration to go with the visual, some will imply this is a story about a girl who has a lot of bad dates and end up being all depressed and sad and with fighting heart, fight back to rise up. Each enemy you fight implies a bad partner. A violent jocky, an alcoholic and drug taking partner, a cheater, a person too obsessed with his/her hobby and a spoiled brat.

Some think it has to do with a kid dying based on the final stage. I too had this impression after playing through the full arcade to finally get a gold, thinking that maybe this is a story about a single mother who got into a lot of bad dates, implied by how the Inside boss fight, you are fighting a kid wearing black who transform into an evil mother also wearing a mourning dress.

But listening to song and talking about it with a friend, I actually arrive at another interpretation. While the stage moves forward, the whole story is actually told in reverse.

This is a story about a girl who fell in love with a boy/girlfriend who is the boss in The World We Knew. This is the only boss that doesn't constantly actively try to kill you but instead, you go inside the head and literally blow the mind apart after you enter it through the heart shape hand sign.

This is easily implied by the song that is literally called Inside that comes as the next boss. The song easily has the more cheerful lyric talking about good time they spend together, days and night and planning what to do next.

However, because of some accident, her Significant Other is dead. The SO's family, mother and sibling, instead of being nice to her, hate and berate her for being the one alive.

In The World We Knew, she's singing about the loss of her love. She feels like she's too old to get a begin again and will instead, stick to treasuring the memories.

In Mine, the song is about lying to herself with those memories. Won't you be my lovely liar?
You're the story I desire. It doesn't matter if it's fake. The world is split into two, the reality and the memories she wants to live in.

Dead of Night then talks about her being the only one alive at the end. Her lover is dead. Even living in a lie, she arrives at the same conclusion she doesn't want to remember.

In begin again, You leave me sad and scarred Broken glass, smoke and ash portion let us assume that it's a car accident. Note that the desert stage on the way to the boss is the only one that let you drive a car.

By going through the game in reverse, this is also where she finally reach the end of her memory train with her lover and, with the use of the fool inside her heart, accept that these are now but memories and that instead of sulking over her loss, she should accept them, treasure them and move on.

And as described above, each of the boss fights are the key moments in her memories. The Highschool day (Devil), the rebellious phase, likely college years (Moon), The time they spend together (lover), and the SO him/herself (Hermit), followed by the funeral (Death).

In Wildheart never dies, she fight through each of her memories again, this time, she is actually the one trying to beat herself down but instead of shutting them down like last time, she accepts them. If you look through each costume, you can get the sense of time and her Death counterpart is pretty much almost like a stay-at-home girlfriend borderline wife.

Also by going in reverse order, the first stage is called Clair De Lune. The two things to take note from this is that 1) Claire de Lune is often portrayed with the color Blue, our protagonist and 2) the Poem Clair de Lune is the story of this game.

Your soul is a chosen landscape
Where charming masquerades and dancers are promenading,
Playing the lute and dancing, and almost
Sad beneath their fantastic disguises.

While singing in a minor key
Of victorious love, and the pleasant life
They seem not to believe in their own happiness
And their song blends with the moonlight,

With the sad and beautiful moonlight,
Which sets the birds in the trees dreaming,
And makes the fountains sob with ecstasy,
The slender water streams among the marble statues

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_de_lune_(poem)

And with her memory trip coming to an end where it begins, after a time skip, she has come to term with her losses. She plays one last song, A Place I Don't Know, as a good bye to her beloved.

Edit: I also just realize this when I'm about to write a review. In order to get good score in this game, you have to remember what happen in each segment and where to place your character. In a way, this is actually a MEMORY game.

[HAUSER]

Not gonna lie, it's a very interesting take on the story... but I believe you're digging too much into that; only way to know for sure is to actually talk to the devs!

[Ophidios]

Old post, but here's my take to consider:

The main character is trans. The Fool in tarot represents the beginning of a journey, which we find the character on at the start (just as an aside, compare the appearance of the main character at the beginning of the game with the end of the game). You can look to the lyrics of the song Inside to really bring this out, as well.

The main character was born cis-male, and has treated most of their partners as disposable and unimportant. A complete womanizer, as evidenced in the lyrics for Mine. The characters you fight represent the broken hearts that the main character has left in their wake, and the fight to overcome them shows the main character slowly coming to terms with this part of their life.

Death shows up for the song Inside - and I think this is important. The lyrics revolve around the secret inside that they want to tell their partner, but cannot find the right words. It also hints at the destruction of their relationship (it's Charlie and it's milkshakes, then it's Carly and it's heartbreaks). It implies that the main character, with a history of womanizing, finally loved and trusted someone enough to tell them the truth, and for whatever reason Death couldn't continue to be with the main character after revealing this secret.

This leads to the depressive fugue the main character is in at the beginning of the game. Note that throughout the game, Death is the one character who's heart you never actually break; because Death (which represents significant change and ending in the tarot) broke your heart when you opened up to them.

It's not only a story about Carly's journey with her identity, but also about learning to forgive yourself for the behavior of the past, for understanding others, and for learning to love yourself.

[dylan]

Thanks, please just take my points for the explanations.

[Fallen Cookie]

...Damn. I am really dense. Didn't get nearly any of that