I dont get it.

[BurgerVault]

What did it all mean?

[Hellkrai]

same

[3V1LGR33N]

yiik iv isnt ment for our unyiiked souls....

[Icesnake]

Dont really bother with the metaphysics of the game. I tried to as well, and eventually didnt understand much of it. I kept this though. YiiK is the story about Alex(and every "Alex" out there who plays this game) a pampered manchild who eventually realizes that he is indeed a pampered manchild, and having friends is more precious than his wild obsessions. Also, memes are a serious business, so dont underestimate them and dont lose yourself into the memesauce

[Tako2099]

In the end we all were Alex YIIK.

[Zitiache]

I think what the game means (in terms of themes) is more easily understood than what actually happened in the game; basically accept reality for what it is rather than what you would prefer. Now trying to figure out what events in what realities occurred, or if any of the realities occurred, and who was who, and when and why anything happened if anything did happen at all... that's the confusing part

[BurgerVault]

Originally posted by Zitiache:

I think what the game means (in terms of themes) is more easily understood than what actually happened in the game; basically accept reality for what it is rather than what you would prefer. Now trying to figure out what events in what realities occurred, or if any of the realities occurred, and who was who, and when and why anything happened if anything did happen at all... that's the confusing part

Indeed, events just don't add up. And the more I think about it the less sense it makes.

[Macario]

Originally posted by Zitiache:

I think what the game means (in terms of themes) is more easily understood than what actually happened in the game; basically accept reality for what it is rather than what you would prefer. Now trying to figure out what events in what realities occurred, or if any of the realities occurred, and who was who, and when and why anything happened if anything did happen at all... that's the confusing part

This I summarize completely, I thought I understood the story more or less, but then you get to benevolent psychosis and it's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mess, it's hard to be immersed in the story when you're constantly questioning if x character is x character, but it turns out that yes he is, but in reality no, that wasn't the "OG" he's from another reality, etc, etc. And then at the end where Asuka tells Michel that the multi reality were all BS, which makes no sense and the truth is that I stopped being interested in the story.

[Water]

Originally posted by BurgerVault:

What did it all mean?

I'm still trying to figure it out, myself. Not from one viewpoint, but from a lot of the possible viewpoints the game wants to push forward. Alex is a liar, Alex was manipulated by the Essentia, Alex is the embodiment of his parents worst memes...But none of these really get to the heart of what's supposed to make Alex so horrible. I think the game's original story was just about how Alex was a ♥♥♥♥ to the Essentia. In that telling of the story, Alex's big problem is that he's an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that transcends reality, he says things he knows are hurtful and is widely inconsiderate to his friends but does it anyway because he doesn't think there'd be consequences for that behavior. A lot of that is inferred from the lyrics to "The Machine and the Krow" and the fact that Alex pulls out the memories of everything Vella wanted to leave behind just so he could find a robot he kept dreaming about. Hell, there's also his interactions with Sammy herself. He doesn't listen to anything she says, continues to project his idea that the cat is named "Dali" without considering that it could be named "Dolly," if YIIK's original story was just Alex recapping everything to the player, I don't think he's necessarily lying, I think he's just trying to make up for the times he tuned Sammy out. Hell, maybe they didn't physically meet - could be they met in a dream. YIIK's revised story drives the dreamlike aspect into the player's head a lot more, but "dreams" seem to be more about the spiritual link between people rather than just a cut-and-dry "it never happened" like Michael seems to think. Given the stuff that happens near the end of the game, I think Sammy's real deal is less that she's Alex's obsessions personified, but more that she's the embodiment of Alex's wish to relate to someone else, pasted over the memories of Allison that were stolen by Michael. Dunno how "the player" ended up with those memories, but that's getting off topic. I don't think the game is the deepest thing, but I think the things its trying to say are worth reading into. The only problem is it also feels like the game is beating me over the head yelling "BUT DO YOU REALLY GET IT?" with this secret ending thing that nobody has made any progress on the second step of since the path to it was found like six years ago. I'm sure it's not trying to be some grandiose statement, just another ending going off of...whatever the hell kind of understanding of the game you need to arrive to the conclusion that guides you along to the ending.

Edit: I meant to write a bit more about the dreamlike themes... In that regard, it's a bit ironic that Alex is basically a "dream emitter" that pulls everyone into his realm as long as they stay near him, but the curtains lift whenever he's out of commission like with the Perfume King cutscene. When I got to that point, I thought it was so weirdly jammed in just to add a boss fight at the end of the dungeon, and it kind of is that, but it isn't done just for the sake of it. It's intentional that the moment Alex gets lost in Nostalgia™, focus shifts to the other side of the room where a ♥♥♥♥♥ with a giant tank was standing the whole time. He was probably always there, just hiding behind Alex's field of distorted reality. Everything going on in the game is real, but to what extent? It's a bunch of parallel realities playing out the same scenarios for the sake of keeping Alex in stasis, so the Essentia can feed off of the impossible dream like a vampire. Sammy might not have been real, but something had to have made her. She served a purpose in the dream, but it's the same in every reality.

[Macario]

Originally posted by Water:

Originally posted by BurgerVault:

What did it all mean?

I'm still trying to figure it out, myself. Not from one viewpoint, but from a lot of the possible viewpoints the game wants to push forward. Alex is a liar, Alex was manipulated by the Essentia, Alex is the embodiment of his parents worst memes...But none of these really get to the heart of what's supposed to make Alex so horrible. I think the game's original story was just about how Alex was a ♥♥♥♥ to the Essentia. In that telling of the story, Alex's big problem is that he's an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that transcends reality, he says things he knows are hurtful and is widely inconsiderate to his friends but does it anyway because he doesn't think there'd be consequences for that behavior. A lot of that is inferred from the lyrics to "The Machine and the Krow" and the fact that Alex pulls out the memories of everything Vella wanted to leave behind just so he could find a robot he kept dreaming about. Hell, there's also his interactions with Sammy herself. He doesn't listen to anything she says, continues to project his idea that the cat is named "Dali" without considering that it could be named "Dolly," if YIIK's original story was just Alex recapping everything to the player, I don't think he's necessarily lying, I think he's just trying to make up for the times he tuned Sammy out. Hell, maybe they didn't physically meet - could be they met in a dream. YIIK's revised story drives the dreamlike aspect into the player's head a lot more, but "dreams" seem to be more about the spiritual link between people rather than just a cut-and-dry "it never happened" like Michael seems to think. Given the stuff that happens near the end of the game, I think Sammy's real deal is less that she's Alex's obsessions personified, but more that she's the embodiment of Alex's wish to relate to someone else, pasted over the memories of Allison that were stolen by Michael. Dunno how "the player" ended up with those memories, but that's getting off topic. I don't think the game is the deepest thing, but I think the things its trying to say are worth reading into. The only problem is it also feels like the game is beating me over the head yelling "BUT DO YOU REALLY GET IT?" with this secret ending thing that nobody has made any progress on the second step of since the path to it was found like six years ago. I'm sure it's not trying to be some grandiose statement, just another ending going off of...whatever the hell kind of understanding of the game you need to arrive to the conclusion that guides you along to the ending.

Edit: I meant to write a bit more about the dreamlike themes... In that regard, it's a bit ironic that Alex is basically a "dream emitter" that pulls everyone into his realm as long as they stay near him, but the curtains lift whenever he's out of commission like with the Perfume King cutscene. When I got to that point, I thought it was so weirdly jammed in just to add a boss fight at the end of the dungeon, and it kind of is that, but it isn't done just for the sake of it. It's intentional that the moment Alex gets lost in Nostalgia™, focus shifts to the other side of the room where a ♥♥♥♥♥ with a giant tank was standing the whole time. He was probably always there, just hiding behind Alex's field of distorted reality. Everything going on in the game is real, but to what extent? It's a bunch of parallel realities playing out the same scenarios for the sake of keeping Alex in stasis, so the Essentia can feed off of the impossible dream like a vampire. Sammy might not have been real, but something had to have made her. She served a purpose in the dream, but it's the same in every reality.

It honestly feels like the Base story and Benevolent Psychosis are trying to tell very different stories, but at the same time BP is trying to be a prequel-sequel, the "normal" story takes the Alex angle of how he starts out as a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ but changes as a person throughout the game, but then in Benevolent Psychosis they go full on "No, Alex is disgusting and unredeemable" which I feel very mixed about, you can see at one point why everyone thinks this way, Axel failed to protect his universe and Michel's been stuck in this loop where this guy is the face of his downfall over and over again, in that sense I guess I see why. I think my problem with the story is that it doesn’t treat its characters as characters, you’re constantly questioning who is who, who I’m looking at is actually the character or one of the million versions of the character, or if the current events are even real, it’s hard to care when all its so screw up, or why so many characters move around, and it tries to tell SO MANY things from SO MANY angles from different perspectives sometimes contradicting it (am I supposed to buy that what Asuka said at the end about multiverses being all BS? give me a break, literally the “original” story makes no sense if that’s the case unless you’re really far-fetched with the plot) it just gets annoying, I remember after that Kisague X part in the tower, after Alex “killed” Sammy, and they reveal that they were just filming the whole thing, I got lost and stopped caring about the story and just wanted to see how it ended, and it ended, I guess in a happy ending? And whenever I look at someone's explanation of anything I can never avoid get the feeling of: "This sounds kind of BS" but I can't blame anyone for that, the story is a mess. And the worst thing is that I still like it when I don't think too much about it, and it at basic level. But when a story isn't able to tell me well what it's trying to tell me I question whether to call it "good" and it feels like its using being clever and weird is a shield to be criticized. It's a mess: 8/10 I loved this game (not sarcastic.)

Edit: I won't bother with Spoiler tags, because in this type of discussion one expects Spoilers, if someone comes here without finishing the game first it is at their own discretion.