悠久のティアブレイド -Lost Chronicle-

Completion date: May 22, 2026

Recommended play order: Sud > Atharva > Yajur > Cradle > Row > Truth

Final Thoughts (spoiler free – in addition, I write a blurb after each character’s route summary in thoughts specific to the character – but those are not spoiler-free).

***All my reviews contain spoilers.***

COMMON ROUTE/MAIN STORY

The game begins between a brief conversation between a girl named Eve and her AI assistant, Cradle. They appear to live in an artificial world where the sky and weather are programmed by AI. It is suggested that they have spent “thousands” of summers in this space.

Before we could learn more, the camera pans to “one day ago”, where in a dystopian world and the government army forcibly takes babies from their mothers, a red-haired man named Sud kicks some soldier-ass in the slums and returns the baby to his mother. In this world, everyone’s fate is decided upon birth: their talents, occupation, and social class. Sud runs an agency where he takes on various tasks for others. However, his love for helping others determines that he doesn’t exactly get paid for every job.

Because of the endless wars that humans wage, the atmosphere has become severely polluted where the sky is no longer in its blue colour, nor can the sun be seen. An incurable lung disease afflicts this planet’s inhabitants due to the pollution, including a younger brother figure to Sud, who he desperately keeps alive with his modest earnings. Even the doctor tells Sud that it’s time to let go, that all of this is pointless unless he can somehow save the world and fix its pollution, to which Sud sarcastically repeats.

As Sud retires for the day, a well-dressed young man with blue hair holds him at sword point demanding to talk to “Gaz”, who is Sud’s deceased adoptive father. Atharva appears to be of noble upbringing but extremely sheltered and seems to lack social skills and common sense. He gives Sud some coordinates and begs him to take him there. He tells Sud that they can meet “the ancient ones” (people who lived long before their era) who are said to wield mysterious powers. With their powers, they can possibly fix the pollution in the world and cure Sud’s brother. Before a skeptical Sud can ask more questions, the army breaks in chasing Atharva, giving him no chance but to run with him.

Sud and Atharva run to the coordinates but it is empty. As the soldiers close in, an earthquake erupts; the two fall through the ground fissures. As Sud prepares to embrace his death, he falls into a city full of vegetation, then plunges into a clear body of water, where he is retrieved by an ashen-haired girl named … Eve.

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Thus, Eve and Cradle begin living with their two new friends. Aside from lacking a lot of common sense and being childlike, Eve doesn’t know what the concept of “death” is and asks Sud/Atharva. She tells the two that she’s been living here with Cradle for the past 3000 years. She does not find this isolation an issue at all, but reads that to humans, this is not okay.

An intruder – a giant robot – invades Eve’s world (the “neosphere”) and shoots Sud in the chest, who bleeds to death in her arms. Cradle tells her that this is the meaning of “death”. For the first time in 3000 years, Eve learns what it’s like to feel “sad”. As the sorrow runs through her heart, a mecha answers her call. Cradle says the mecha is the “last sword of the knights that protected this sanctuary”. Its name – Tierblade.

Sud becomes revived by Tierblade. Depending on whose route you’re in, eventually the LI becomes appointed the new “knight” and the wielder of Tierblade alongside Eve. Tierblade manages to destroy the intruder robot which was automated without a driver inside.

Having unlocked Tierblade, the group goes into the town centre and its “central core”. They find a laboratory that controls the neosphere & the docking spot for Tierblade. They also find one remaining functional “healing pod” which resurrects people from the dead by cloning them and their memories.

The next attack from the outside world commences. This time, it’s an identical, but black mecha, driven by a strange man named Row. He appears to know Eve from a long time ago, and announces he is here to reunite with her after 3000 years… so that they can commit suicide together.

Eve starts getting a huge headache as he and his Tierblade approach. She has no idea who Row is, but her instincts tell her that this man is dangerous and should not be allowed near. Row is enraged that Eve doesn’t know who he is, and even angrier at the fact that someone is copiloting her Tierblade and that person sitting next to her isn’t him.

Row overpowers Eve’s Tierblade and forcibly pulls her out of the cockpit. However, after inspecting her he suddenly starts strangling Eve, saying she is not herself anymore and has been replaced by something filthy.

As Eve’s vision starts to blur and she wonders to herself whether she too is “dying”, a bullet pierces Row’s forehead. A blonde man catches Eve and gets flirtatious with her. He is the person from the healing pod earlier, but doesn’t have any memory of who he is or why he’s here.

Row is forced to retreat. Somehow, his head wound heals completely. He tells his curious subordinate Carmine that like Eve, they are both “ancient ones” who have “crossed the forbidden rules” then warned Carmine to not probe more if he values his life.

Cradle scans the blonde man and says he was registered in its (his?) system even 3000 years ago, identifying him as Yajur, a prominent government official. While Yajur still has no idea (or appears not to) who he was in the past, he is able to read Tierblade’s manual (which was written in an old language that is now extinct; Eve also doesn’t know how to read it – but there is an explanation for that later) and breezed through the repair/engineering work of central core, bringing Eve one step closer to going above ground to help fix the pollution in Sud’s world.

From what remains of central core, clearly Eve’s old civilization was extremely advanced. So why did it go extinct? Nobody is able to answer Sud, including Cradle who says “this is not recorded in my system”. However, upon entering a room with ten thermal reactors, Cradle comments that many of them are broken. When they broke down from overload, they released harmful substances that polluted the atmosphere as the chemical makeup is identical. It turns out it wasn’t the humans in the present world who polluted the world, but their ancestors…

The group continues exploring and come across a mass graveyard, even though Eve has no memory of a single corpse in the past 3000 years, nor does she know what a “grave” is. They come across “Queen”, or a mastermind robot of the neosphere, that registers all of them as threats. Queen overpowers and captures the group (including Cradle) and announces that she will dismember everyone so that they can be the new building blocks of neosphere and its robots. She starts with Eve but says Eve cannot be used because all she has left is her brainstem.

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As neosphere ascends, Cradle starts bugging out, saying that allowing Eve to resurface is against the programmed rules. However, he is not able to go against Eve’s wishes so has to override this rule. Cradle says “there is no time left. A choice must be made between the two competing commands that were given by Eve“. Sud tries to ask Cradle about Eve’s mysterious powers in the central core. Cradle refuses saying it’s classified information. However, when Eve overrides this rule again, Cradle replies that she can use “nanomachines”, that can decompose any substance and also regenerate/heal, at will. Cradle also tells Eve that nanomachines are sustaining Eve’s life allowing her to be immortal. If she chooses to save the planet and its pollution, then she will no longer be alive.

Row and his Tierblade appears and defeat the group. Row is also able to command Cradle, at a higher level than Eve, to the point he can override Eve’s commands. Cradle is clearly hiding a lot more than he lets on, but before Eve can learn more he goes into error and crashes. At the same time, Yajur enters and holds everyone at gunpoint, revealing he has been a traitor all along. Cradle wakes up and mentions Yajur is also a “human mimicry”.

Yajur doesn’t hesitate to hurt Eve at all if she doesn’t stay put, which irritates Row. They do not belong in the same faction, it seems. Yajur’s boss, the mysterious black-haired figure who killed the hacker, makes his entrance, introducing himself as Arcadia. Arcardia talks in an emotionless, robotic monotone. He says he has also been waiting to meet Eve for 3000 years, and wonder if this is the same emotion as the “love” that Row’s had for her all this time.

Arcadia casually reveals that 3000 years ago he destroyed all of humankind, but two managed to escape: Eve and Row. He wants to absorb Eve and Row’s consciousness and memories into his master database, so that he can finally complete the mission that was given to him by “God”, which was to “simplify the world” and make it into “one”.

Given Row has wanted to die with Eve since the beginning of the game, clearly he’s entered some kind of pact with Arcadia, who likely lent his aid to track Eve down. A desperate Eve turns to Row and pleads to learn the truth before she dies.

Row obliges her last wish and shows Eve a human girl preserved in a glass container… The original Eve from 3000 years ago. All the sealed memories start rushing back into present Eve’s mind…

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3000 years ago.

In the human nation named Union, a blonde Eve rushes out to hug her brother Gill, who was a knight returning from one of his many expeditions. Row is the prince of the country. While he is clearly smitten for Eve (the feeling is probably somewhat mutual), he is shy to be forward with how he feels despite everyone rooting for the two.

Eve is dragged back to the classroom for a cram course on Union history with Aina – a prominent scientist. Aina quizzes Eve on the “golden era” which was several millennia before their current time. Humans have peaked in humanity thanks to the three great inventions: Nanomachines, thermal reactors, and artificial intelligence. However, AI eventually ran wild and plotted to replace humankind. The humans somehow emerged victorious in the battle against AI and their robots, but lost the majority of their population. As they rebuilt their nation, a decision was made to permanently ban the usage of nanomachines and AI.

Due to the ban on nanomachine technology, no further thermal reactors – which provide energy for the entire world – could be built. This has resulted in endless wars among the human nations over the ownership of the thermal reactors. Humans also used to outsource all their labour to AI and robots. With this possibility outlawed and the population dwindling, humans came up with “mimicry humans” which were mass-produced human bodies with pre-programmed microchips as their brains to perform the everyday tasks allowing full humans like Eve/Gill/Aina/Row to continue with their current lifestyle. Even some of the current knights are mimicry humans.

At this time, Row’s father (king of Union) and Yajur walk in. Yajur immediately gets on one knee and starts putting the moves on Eve before getting back to business at hand. He tells Eve about the “Singularity” (シンガラ which phonetically translates to “shingalar” but I decided to call it the Singularity especially knowing what Arcardia’s motives are) which is a country that betrayed Union’s rules and secretly developing AI and other forbidden technologies, with the goal of uniting all of humankind under “one” brain or superior will, believing this is the most efficient outcome.

Singularity has been warring with Union for a long time and is gaining the upper hand as they do not have restrictions on the technology they are allowed to use. Seeing the writing on the wall, the rulers of Union resort to plan B which is conceding the planet to Singularity and focusing on preserving their civilization, culture, and morals. Thus, comes “Project Neosphere”. The new ruler of Neosphere is set to be Row, as the king needs to stay behind. As plan C, Union is going to utilize nanomachine technology and make Row immortal in case he gets found by the enemy etc.

With all of this weight suddenly dropped on a teenager’s shoulders, Row becomes tearful and asks if Eve will stay by his side no matter what. After getting an affirmative answer, he then asks Eve to become immortal alongside him so they can keep each other company through the eternal loneliness. “If it was just myself, I won’t be able to last decades, centuries, millennia… I am scared… but if I’m with you, I think I can stand it. Eve, I beg you. Please live with me, forever… If I can be with you, then I ask for nothing more!…”

To Eve’s family’s horror, Eve agrees to this grand request and tells Row “let’s stay together forever”, allowing herself to also be immortalized alongside him through nanomachines.

Singularity arrives in the capital. Eve gets ushered to the Neosphere. However, it is after until it sunk under the earth that she realizes in horror that Row is not here. What’s worse is that Singularity somehow infiltrated the Neosphere and released poisonous gas effectively wiping out everyone instantly. All one million of them in their sanctuary, except her and her AI assistant, Cradle.

While Cradle controlled Neosphere to use its surveillance to search for Row on the surface, Eve started making a graves for her countrymen. Years and decades passed but Row is not found. Eventually, all one million graves were completed. “Finally, it’s all over…” Eve lowers herself to the ground and starts laughing hysterically, driven insane with centuries of loneliness and despair.

The next hundred of years, she looked for every way in the book to kill herself. Every time she inflicted a wound, she would immediately regenerate from nanomachines. Eventually, Cradle has no choice but to order Queen to physically restrain her. [At this point, nanomachines only allow regeneration not destruction of substances. Otherwise, she can break free easily..]

Even in confinement, Eve’s brain goes into overload because she’s lived too long. Her brain has no room for new memories left so it starts hallucinating and going insane. Cradle attempts to erase some memories to make room but is unable to. Eve’s and despair and extreme desire to go above surface cause her nanomachines to go berserk and turn her into a giant monster, destructing everything she touches.

Cradle activates Tierblade and sends all ten thermal reactors underground into overdrive. The great energy released manages to “control” but not destroy Eve, with eight reactors going out in the process and releasing pollution in the atmosphere. Before she drifts into slumber, Eve asks Cradle to make her forget everything that’s happened. Cradle preserves the old Eve and her memories in the giant glass container that Row showed present Eve earlier and uses a small fraction of the remaining nanomachines to regenerate a new “Eve” with her brain, but only the most basic functions and memory wiped.

The memory ends. Row explains to (present) Eve that her brain needs to reunite with its body. Once all the nanomachines are together, the only way they can finally be released from their misery is having their nanomachines cancelling each other in the process. This is the only way they could finally die.

Sud (CV: Ishikawa Kaito)

Sud is the hotheaded, kind poster boy who always loves helping others despite his rough upbringing in the slums. His biggest goal is to save his brother and others from the lung disease caused from pollution, and unexpectedly finds himself much closer to this goal than he ever dreamed of. Eve is also moved by his passion and motivated to help him in what ways she can, despite Cradle’s warnings. When they spent time together, Sud tells Eve of creatures called “birds” and how the outside sky has no dome or limits, and used to have a “sun” and “stars”.

When Sud formed the contract with Tierblade, for some reason it immediately accepted him as a knight. Even though he has not driven a mecha before, he was a natural, perhaps too natural?…

Compared to Atharva who was raised in confinement, Sud grew up in a vibrant community. Hence, he reacted the strongest when Eve told them that she’s not interacted with a human for 3000 years, asking how she could have lived through all those years and that it must have been suffering. He tells Eve that “everyone needs someone” and that is the meaning of being a human and of life.

The night before they resurfaced, Sud confesses his feelings for Eve and asks if she wants to live with him after the dust settles.

He tells Eve that he has fallen in love with her. After all, she is putting herself at risk by going above ground for his sake. Hence, he wants to protect her too. Eve tells Sud that she would love to stay with him. Sud then envisions a future where he returns to his agency as the president, and she will work alongside him as his secretary. Eve asks Sud if she can bring Cradle along. Sud is a bit jealous but says sure, earning a cheerful “thank you, Mr. President!” from Eve.

However cute and sweet the above confession scene is translates to how sad what happens next. Sud starts coughing blood during his Tierblade battle with Row and gets thrown out of the mecha because he also contracted the pollution disease and is no longer physically fit to drive it. He later gets shot by Yajur. Cradle secretly heals him with the healing pod. As he rushes to Eve (who’s learned about her past), he gets told by Row that he is not a full human but a “mimicry” where he is a pile of flesh with a microchip as a brain..

Eve tells Row she is willing to die with him if it means he and Arcadia will spare Sud and the rest of the humans (who are all mimicry) on the ground. She apologizes to Sud for breaking her promise to see the real sky and exploring the outside world with him.

Sud is released to the ground and forms an unlikely alliance with Carmine who is getting close to the truth behind Arcadia/Singularity’s rule. A mysterious voice in Sud’s head asks him if he wants to “save the girl”. He awakens a buried memory of him? his ancestor…

SH-DO is a factory-produced mimicry human without a name. Despite being a low-ranking officer, he’s always been curious about mecha, which are only commanded by knights. One day, he is caught red-handed while playing with a mecha simulator by Gill. Gill, who takes an interest in SH-DO, challenges him to a simulated mecha battle, saying if SH-DO can last 3 minutes then he will let him off the hook. To Gill’s surprise, SH-DO asks him “what do I get if I win?” Gill laughs because he was not expecting a mimicry human to talk to him like this and says if he wins he will instantly promote him to a knight.

SH-DO lasts for 5 minutes – beyond what Gill set for him – but as he is about to lose, Gill is pulled away by Aina to attend some meeting. Without a driver of the mecha, SH-DO technically wins this battle. Even SH-DO becomes scared and starts backtracking saying he is grateful for the opportunity to battle the #1 knight and wouldn’t ever dare to join his ranks. However, Gill says a promise is a promise and promotes him to the last knight of the order – #12 (which is the exact same white Tierblade that has been lying in storage in Neosphere – this originally belonged to Sud to begin with) , and gifting him a new name. He is no longer a pile of flesh named after a string of letters but a knight with a new identity, Sud.

Sud meets Eve at the knighting ceremony and receives her blessing.

When the Singularity invades the capital and Gill is occupied elsewhere, #2 knight (who is a grandpa named Galgard) tells Sud to get in Gill’s Tierblade and hold off the intruders and buy time for Eve’s escape.

Eventually, Union loses. Sud, Aina, and other knights die with their consciousness absorbed into Arcardia’s master database, allowing them to briefly meet in the electronic realm. Sud is told that before he forgets his identity and is installed into other mimicry humans, they can embed one message of his choice into his chip to underwrite his personality. Sud remembers what Eve told him and asks for that message to be “please protect everyone.”

Sud meets Galgard’s consciousness who uses his last willpower to teleport Sud back to Neosphere, allowing him to activate his Tierblade once more.

Happy end:

The spirits of the knights (which are confirmed to reincarnate into Tierblade weapons) all side with their former comrade, sending Row into a fit of rage. Arcadia takes advantage of a berserk Row and absorbs his nanomachines to fuel his quantum computers.

The world is about to be destructed until the consciousness of the old Eve tells the current Eve and Sud that she and Row will take care of what they started, that they shouldn’t have to suffer for her sins. Cradle also sacrifices himself to destruct Arcadia. The old Eve/Row use their nanomachine powers to cancel each other out and restore the atmosphere in the process.

Sud and Eve return to Sud’s hometown and live together as promised, running their agency and opening an orphanage.

Tragic end:

Arcadia is killed but something went wrong in the process. Eve’s skin peels away and she is left with a robotic skeleton. Sud tells Eve that no matter what form she takes, he will always love her. As for where this robotic form came from, stay tuned for Atharva route…

Thoughts:

I admit I was very wrong in my first impressions because I did not dig Sud’s design at all, yet his voice actor and the writer made him impossible to hate. His heart of gold has a long history. As this was my first route also, I got so emotional when I learned about Eve’s past and was shocked to find out Sud’s past after, and how this all connects to the events in present day. He is the first person to give the new Eve companionship and teach her how important it is to “have your person”. In a way, the new Sud taught the new Eve the meaning of life, just like how the old Eve gave the old Sud a new purpose beyond walking flesh. Despite the game spending less time on romantic scenes, the confession where Sud tells her “the current me fell in love with the current you all over again” was so beautiful that I am certainly willing to accept quality over quantity.

Atharva (CV: Terashima Takuma)

Atharva grew up in the city but confined to a small residence along with a few other boys whom he calls brothers. He was given books to read but never allowed to leave. He constantly had flashbacks of someone’s memory which usually involves walking across a desert with no one in sight. This person apparently has been doing this for hundreds of years, even though real life Atharva is just 19.

The owner of these memories have been searching for someone. Hence, when he meets Eve, even though he personally has no history with her, he cannot help but start crying and hugging her tightly, blurting out that he’s been searching for her all this time.

In everyday life, Atharva is sheltered, well-educated, but like Eve has no experience talking to others hence, lacks a lot of common sense. For example, during the onsen scene he didn’t understand what problem it posed for Eve to pull down her towel and why Sud was getting all hot and bothered. Unlike Sud and Yajur, he is physically weaker, often falling behind when the group goes on a long walk/run. There was one scene where Atharva instinctively hugged Eve tightly, accidentally touching her breasts in the process, earning him a slap from Eve. I didn’t like this scene because Eve is even more sheltered than Atharva; if she didn’t understand what it meant to pull down her towel and show her naked body to a bunch of men, why would she suddenly get all self-conscious about a man touching her boobs?

I honestly didn’t realize Atharva’s real identity even after seeing the OG Row’s sprite. However, the game tips you off in plenty of occasions such as when the knights’ spirits give his Tierblade weapons, they call him a “troublesome prince” and later directly “your majesty”.

Row also loses his shit seeing Atharva’s face, saying out of all the people, he could not accept Atharva being the one sitting next to Eve but so far doesn’t reveal why.

When Row escaped from his confinement to find Eve, he grabbed a sword in the house and brought it with him to protect himself. When Eve touched this weapon, she suddenly feels a strong emotional connection to it and starts crying despite not knowing why. Row offers to gift Eve the sword, saying maybe she does have history with his memories’ owner, but Eve declines and says since it came from Row’s house he should keep it.

The night before the ascension, Atharva and Eve clean the interior of Tierblade together. Atharva asks himself why he, or rather his memories’ owner, loves Eve, who is “clumsy, naive, and weird”, yet undeniably makes him feel peace whenever he is by her side. Eve asks Atharva if he, not the memories’ owner, would search for her if one day she disappeared. Atharva says he hasn’t lived long enough to know if he would search for anyone for hundreds of years. However, he would certainly look for her as Atharva if she went missing. He tells her that he likes and cares enough about her to do this.

During the ascension, Atharva and Row fight each other in their Tierblades again. Row sarcastically remarks that even the knights have chosen Atharva’s side instead of his. He asks Atharva which “generation” his version of memory is then says his memory is the original copy. Atharva and his brothers are clones created for the sole purpose of backing up Row’s memories. Row laughs in his face for daring to rise up against his master as a mere copy. As Atharva loses the battle, his Tierblade uses its last energy to teleport him and Eve to a random location in the Neosphere, allowing them to escape. Atharva passes out from a severe headache.

In Atharva’s dreams, he returns to the same memory in the desert. Only this time, the owner finds an oasis and sees his reflection in the water. The memory did indeed belong to Row.

Eve gets captured and learns about her past. Sud gets revived by Cradle and pulls up with a lesser mecha. Yajur defeats him but before he could deliver the final blow, Cradle commands Queen to aid Sud. A chaotic battle ensues where Eve’s arm gets trapped under the rubble and severely damaged. When she pulls her hand out, her skin has sloughed off revealing a robotic skeleton within.

While in hiding, Atharva holds Eve’s robotic hand and asks if she is in pain. He tells Eve that they are the same kind of people. He is a vessel for Row’s brain, while she is also a vessel for the old Eve’s consciousness… Atharva cannot accept that his entire life purpose is to be a “tool” for someone like Row. He starts crying, saying all his life his entire motivation to live is to find the person in Row’s memories. He truly believed that this was a beautiful purpose, until he discovered what an arrogant and ugly person Row was. Before he could say more, he suddenly collapses from a fever.

Cradle tells Eve that Atharva’s brain is decomposing because this was a “formatting” function programmed by Row to destruct his clones when he had no use for them anymore. He also tells Eve while her nanomachines can regenerate flesh, they cannot regenerate other people’s brains or memories. Row’s lackeys are near and on the hunt for them. Suddenly, Atharva wakes up and speaks in a different tone and gets them out of trouble. Who is he?

Leag, who was Atharva’s deceased brother who had a connection to Sud’s father, explains that his personality was backed up in Atharva’s mind. Now that “Atharva” has withdrawn as part of a defence mechanism, he will temporarily take over and help them out. He brings our an “artificial brain” (literal translation: living computer which is a microchip that can be implanted into flesh) and states Atharva can only be saved if they copy his memories onto the new brain then perform a brain-swap surgery in his current body. In the meantime, Carmine meets Yajur who casually walks out and asks who he is. Yajur arrogantly replies “I am your oldest senpai.”

Yajur/Carmine approach as Atharva’s condition worsens. They must perform the surgery immediately. Leag says there’s no need for his personality to be backed up this time as in real life he has already died and fulfilled his purpose.

The surgery commences. Atharva wakes up in his mind and meets Leag who bids him farewell for the lat time. He tells Atharva that Eve is “worth it”.

Atharva retakes control of Tierblade and drives away the enemies. However, he is having trouble processing the events that just transpired and withdraws from Eve. With the surgery and shock to his brain, he no longer retains Row’s memory, which he considers the core of his personality and meaning of life. He can no longer recall the “reason” for his actions and all his decisions leading up to this point of his life. He tells Eve that Row’s memory has gotten him through all the hardships in his life, as it’s all he had; now this is taken away from him.

Eve asks Atharva why he wouldn’t consider other “reasons” for him to continue living. Even though Row’s memory is gone, they have new things to look forward to. New goals and people to protect. She says when she saw her own past, she really thought about becoming one with past Eve and letting her take over her consciousness, because she thought this would fulfill Atharva’s dream of finding the girl in Row’s memory, because she loves him. Does Atharva stop loving Eve, wanting to protect her, or be with her because he lost Row’s memory? Aren’t those emotions still here? Atharva replies he doesn’t have faith in himself that he will yearn for Eve for thousands of years like Row did. Eve replies she is not asking for that. She tells Atharva he is not some “storage object” for Row’s memory; he is his own entity who can make his own choices. This time, she wishes Atharva will choose her on his own volition.

The final showdown begins. Cradle and Arcadia have an epic AI battle (as Arcardia is confirmed to be the mastermind AI behind Singularity that resides within an android) with Cradle destroying Arcadia. Meanwhile, Atharva is pitted against his former self.

Eve places her hand on Atharva’s and drive Tierblade with him. The two Tierblades fall for thousands of meters into the bottom of Neosphere.

Eve cries for her past self to return her call. They merge into one consciousness, but present Eve emerges victorious. She regenerates a human hand out of her robotic skeleton. Cradle has overloaded the repaired thermal reactors which suppress Row this time like how it did to Eve for past 3000 years.

Happy End:

Eve was not able to purify the entire world’s atmosphere. However, Neosphere becomes a new haven for people on earth, especially those already afflicted by the lung disease. Atharva and Eve bring flowers to the mass grave. After they say their prayers, he asks if Eve wants to travel the world with him.

Tragic End:

As the thermal reactors went into overdrive, Eve feels despair wash over her and accepts her fate to die. She does wake up, but the old Eve has taken over her and calls Atharva “Row” and asks if he’s been waiting for her all this time. She tells Atharva that she’s finally fulfilled her promise after 3000 years, to be with him forever.

Atharva, realizing that the Eve he fell in love with is gone forever, accepts his fate and tells her “Eve, of course it’s me.. it’s Row.”

Thoughts:

I started soft-fast reading/skipping towards the end mainly because I didn’t care as much about Cradle/Arcadia’s battle or about Leag/Gaz’s past (I felt they could have explained the story in half the length and use the time to focus on the actual protagonists). Atharva was also hiding from Eve for a while until she finally cornered him and was like dude what is your problem. They really only had one deep confession scene – a soft criticism of this game is that the romance is sidelined by plot – but it was very romantic. That being said, I will take one quality scene over 10 dragging eye roll-inducing ones.

I am not entirely surprised by Atharva’s identity because the game drops obvious hints in the beginning but still this is an interesting take that we don’t see as much in otome because we don’t have that many sci-fi games. I wish more time was spent for Atharva to accept himself as who he is, and his own experiences, instead of clinging on to Row’s. However, one can argue that Yajur/Row were not allowing them of this luxury. This is a tightly paced game.

The happy ending is not as satisfying on a grand scale compared to Sud’s where all of their problems magically went away. I like to interpret it this way: Sud’s route is about saving the world, whereas Atharva’s is about saving himself and accepting his identity. Instead of saving the world, they save themselves which is a different yet still beautiful perspective and direction for the writer to take.

While both endings are beautiful, the happy ending does lose out slightly to the tragic ending… 切ない

Yajur (CV: Kondou Takashi)

In the common route, Yajur was the comedian of the group. He claims to not remember who he is, but somehow knows the intricacies of Neosphere and its technologies. He is often seen flirting with Eve on a shallow level, earning Sud/Atharva/Cradle’s annoyance. He is the older guy who makes some suggestive jokes and think he is so slick for them while Eve is left ??? E.g. when he carries Eve over a river, he tells her to tighten her arms around his neck. Eve replies I don’t think I should because I’d choke you. He was like “I don’t mind 😏😏😏” lawls

Other than our own spidey senses going off, the common route later directly shows Yajur as the traitor and someone who appears to work for Arcadia. However, in both Sud/Atharva routes he just disappears in the endings nowhere to be found. So what is his backstory?

Their scene in the Neosphere is where Yajur gets Eve to sit on his lap, calls her his “princess”, and says literally sweet nothings while claiming he lost his memory. I am not going to post the CG here because I was put off by how Eve literally looked like a 12-year-old with boobs and tweeted that if this is how the route was gonna go, then I would not like it. In the hugging scene above, Eve calls Yajur an “older brother” which makes him really dejected but jokes that at least he wasn’t called a father figure.

So yea, the early romance scenes were mid at best. When Queen becomes the angry slime man, Eve finds herself in the Tierblade, but couldn’t drive it without a “knight”. Yajur climbs on top of the Tierblade (isn’t that thing like 30 meters?!) and demands Eve let him in. However, when he tries to operate it, he gets shocked by electricity. Learning that he needs to demonstrate “a will to protect Eve”, he talks to the Tierblade who gives in after Eve hugs him and also begs Tierblade to allow Yajur to drive. The knight spirits also all refuse to help Yajur, due to their history with him. It isn’t until Yajur threatened to use Tierblade to step on the mass graves that #3 finally gives in and allows him to use his spear.

After the battle, Yajur hears Arcadia’s voice in his head and asks him to relay the next order, confirming that he not only has been feigning memory loss but also worked for the Singularity/Arcadia all along.

Later when Row invaded Neosphere, upon seeing his old enemy he is also surprised but also laughs saying he will finally make Yajur pay this time.

They lose the battle but are teleported to somewhere safe within Neosphere by Tierblade, for now. Eve still doesn’t know who Yajur is at this point, so she tries her best to cheer him up by telling him “everything will be okay”.

Then he formally defects. The CG plays, but with an extra line of him mocking Eve, “You said everything would be okay, huh. Doesn’t look okay to me.” However sweet he was to Eve in the past is how cold he is to her now. When Eve started crying and kicking, he didn’t hesitate to use his fists to silence her, in the physical sense yes.

Being classic anime antagonists, Arcadia introduces his role and how Yajur has been working for him since 3000 years ago. Just when things were starting to go according to plan for Yajur, he is overcome by a strong wave of nausea and starts violently vomiting. Arcadia tells him that because his body was regenerated in the healing pod, it regenerated everything, including his conscience, that he purposely asked Arcardia to wipe out in his body 3000 years ago. Arcardia isn’t able to generate another body for Yajur right now so asks him to endure.

Yajur takes on the role of Eve’s prison guard. God I love his old/evil hair whatever you wanna call it. He looks so good with it but then has to put his bangs down now for what?!

Eve starts crying saying she doesn’t understand why Yajur would betray her. Do the memories in Neosphere not count at all? She is the one who saved him… This appears to piss off Yajur a great deal. He tells Eve that she’s been blissfully unaware of everything around her and protected like a delicate flower all her life. That’s what he thinks she is: a stupid, privileged girl who after 3000 years still has no clue what is going on. As he is about to get rough with Eve, Row intervenes and threatens him to back off with his nanomachine powers. The history 3000 years ago is revealed to Eve through a series of flashbacks.

In addition, we see Yajur’s POV 3000 years ago where he fights against Aina and Gil, and how he ended up getting stuffed in the healing pod.

We return to present time after Eve learns of her past. Yajur is chased off by Row, who tells Eve that when tomorrow comes, everything will be over when she becomes one with the original Eve.

Somehow, this conveniently leaves Eve under an unguarded state? She sees a soldier stealing things from the tent that the guys set up to sleep in, and chased him to a mountain. I mean, why is this soldier afraid of Eve, a 16-year-old appearing girl? Writing is not the best here, but I am biased so I will let it go. She chases the soldier onto the mountain, who falls off a cliff to his death (but wouldn’t fight her? Did Row scare all of them straight?)

Instead of being sad or guilty, Eve awakens “anger” within her for the first time. She tells herself that she didn’t kill this soldier; he did it to himself by being a filthy thief, and this is what he deserves…

The next day arrives. With Arcardia’s permission, Row challenges Yajur to a mecha duel, but gives Yajur the crappy robot while he has the shiny black Tierblade. Yajur jokes that this is quite unfair, to which Row replies this is to account for the difference in battle experience and skill between the users. Eve is driving Row’s Tierblade. She agrees to Row and Arcardia’s request on one condition: that she can bring Yajur to justice and make him pay for his crimes.

Despite the difference in mecha, Yajur toys with Eve, whose anger eventually explodes and she becomes one with the original Eve, gaining access to all of the nanomachines (where she initially only carried a small fraction, while the rest rested with the original) and wins the battle. As she controls Row’s Tierblade grasping Yajur’s body in its hands, all she needed to do was pull the lever so he can be crushed to death. However, she cannot bring herself to do it.

Yajur continues to taunt her and accepts his fate, saying he deserves it and should have accounted for this happening the day he decided to be a traitor and lapdog for Arcadia. However, Eve inspects herself and concludes that the majority of her wrath comes from Yajur being one of the key reasons her? homeland fell 3000 years ago. In other words, does this anger belong to her, or the old Eve? What does the current Eve feel? She hates to admit it, but the current Eve feels love… even though he also betrayed her in this timeline. Yajur tells Eve to hurry up and kill him; that there is no point in showing mercy or forgiveness. The original Eve in current Eve’s head becomes very angry that current Eve is hesitating. She goes berserk and separates from current Eve again causing havoc in Neosphere with her nanomachines.

A tired current Eve returns to her base camp with Yajur, meeting up with Sud, Atharva, and Cradle, who are surprised and angry at Yajur but agree to keep him alive, because well, princess’ wishes. Yajur asks if Eve is just keeping him alive to make fun of his situation right now.

Eve replies that she wants to understand more about himself, and his motivations behind betraying Union even 3000 years ago. Yajur agrees to share but asks Eve to kill him after the narration is over.

Eve, Gil, and Row grew up at the top of society. The mimicry human part may have thrown you off a bit already that this world isn’t all sunshine and butterflies. Yajur happened to be born into a nation without access to thermal reactors nor did his life matter to anyone; well, anyone important anyway. He’s gone through so many body transformations – some against his will – that he no longer remembers what he originally was – only that he retained the colour of his eyes. The only way he could live was to fight with his robotically engineered body. After all his mates died, he hid in a pile of corpses to avoid being drafted for further battles. It was at that moment he thought to himself that his fate was probably to die without anyone remembering or caring about him, just like those who did before and beside him. In the trenches, this boy made a vow:

Yajur survived the war and fought brilliantly in the wars that ensued, slowly making a name and living. He used his first paycheque on replacing his real brain with a bionic one, where he purposely wiped out his own conscience, turning into a battle machine. He eventually meets Arcadia who proposes to reset this world that he already hates according to Arcardia’s (or “the one”‘s) vision. He agrees to work for Arcardia if he writes his name in history to be immortalized in Arcardia’s archives.

Yajur finishes his story. Eve realizes from her tears that she is crying for him. Yajur feels a strong wave of “conscience” washing over him and demands Eve kill him at this instant so he doesn’t have to suffer anymore. Eve instead hugs Yajur, saying but all she wants is to stay by his side. She does not deny that Yajur worked against her 3000 years ago, and betrayed her and her friends this time around too. However, she tells Yajur that none of this past matters if “you have me”, and pleads with him to look ahead into the future with her. Yajur says you stupid idiot just kill me now. Eve says he is bluffing and that he is mentally suffering because he wants to be forgiven.

Eve tells Yajur that he’s already paid the price for 3000 years. If that is not enough, she will repent with him in the future together. Yajur remarks that even after learning his story, Eve still has not changed one bit. She continues to be so naive and trusting. Eve asks if Yajur still hates her like this, to which Yajur also cannot give her an affirmative answer and starts crying too, saying that after he’s finally made history that’s worth him dying, Eve (as the remnant of this history) tells him to live and that he is forgiven… He returns Eve’s embrace, telling her that the days he spent with the group in Neosphere were the happiest moments of his life, where he didn’t need to think about fight or flight, “hunt or to be hunted”. He begs Eve for forgiveness, to which she replies that he does not need anyone’s “permission” to live.

Cradle offers some insight on maybe this goofy, happy-go-lucky Yajur is what his original personality is like, despite him trying to be hard-boiled and tough and all mean, as when he was resurrected from the healing pod the AI attempts to recreate the most accurate personality to the person’s original based on their genetic profile.

The original Eve is still at large… How will Yajur and Eve defeat her, given his bad blood with Union/none of the knights are willing to help him?

Sud pulls up with #12 Tierblade – the one originally assigned to him.

With Sud’s help, Yajur is able to meet the souls of the Union knights that died protecting their country (against him and Arcadia), and be temporarily named the “13th knight” and tasked with protecting Eve and the world.

I also really like the detail where Yajur tells Eve it’s okay if she doesn’t want to look at the gruesome battle scene; that he will take care of everything for her. Eve replies that they are in this together, so she not only won’t look away, but will also aid in his effort and work together. Unfortunately, plant Eve is too imbalanced and overpowers both of them, piercing through their bodies with her vines and sending them to the soul realm? Eve screams at old eve “DON’T TAKE AWAY YAJUR FROM ME”. This time, the #1 knight – Gil – answers Eve’s call, directly, not to Yajur.

Gil’s soul entrusts Eve with his own sword. Eve wields her dead brother’s sword and ends it once and for all against plant Eve.

The soul realm starts to disintegrate with old Eve dead. Both Eve and Yajur’s bodies start to disappear.

Happy end:

The energy released from killing plant Eve solved the pollution of the world above ground. However, neither Eve nor Yajur are found in the aftermath. Atharva works for Sud’s agency but yells at him all the time because Sud is too goody-two-shoes and does chores for free; this causes the agency to be in the red all year long. One day, Cradle suddenly perks up and says “She has returned.” In the distance, Yajur and Eve wake up in a body of water. This time, Yajur seriously tells Eve that he will stay by her side and protect her, as her loyal knight.

Tragic end:

Eve becomes one with old Eve and takes over the plant body. Yajur stays in the Neosphere with plant Eve, loving her even if she’s a monster.

Thoughts: This was my favourite route in the game by far! A lot of new content that deviated from the main story and from an antagonistic perspective. Yajur is born into the lowest point of society, but vows to change his fate and make his own name – through whatever means necessary – by his own efforts. He does not care about the method he uses, because growing up, the higher-ups from Union – privileged people like “princess” Eve, Row, or Gil – never showed him mercy either. He had to fight tooth for nail in order to survive and actualize his ambition. When he was supposedly devoid of conscience, the psychopathic side of him really made him a “switch on/off” type personality where he can be very charming at one moment, yet lethal, cold, calculating, and feral in the next. I cannot help but relate him to Munakata Kai from Un:Logical that I also enjoyed most out of U:L. Both of them are blonde and share psychopathy traits. I certainly don’t condone any of these behaviours IRL but I guess I myself am a prime study subject to why people, arguably women, are attracted to traits of psychopathy/lack of morals – which is seen time and time again with those criminals IRL having hordes of fans.

Cradle (CV: Kakihara Tetsuya)

Thoughts:

You’re probably like, wait, but where’s the long plot summary?! See, this route to me was more of a parody route for multiple reasons.

Basically, Cradle gets one-on-one time with Eve (dude you already got 3000+ years) and becomes even more attached to her. Eve also treats Cradle as the most important “being” of her life. To protect Eve’s fragile psyche, Cradle has been quietly disposing of the corpses in Neosphere – such as the dead bodies of birds answering Sud’s question of “how come nothing ever dies in this universe”.

The group gets their ass handed to them by Row again. Sud pulls up with his pile of junk robot. What’s different in this route is Queen defects Arcadia and is intent on making sure Eve returns to Cradle’s side at any cost – without any regard for the rest of the characters, because they are “irrelevant”. Cradle becomes severely damaged in the process and reverts to a basic state where he would report the weather and seems to have forgotten all the bonds he had with Eve.

However, when Eve asked why he “rebuilt” her instead of just keeping her asleep in that tank for the rest of eternity, Cradle says, “because I feel lonely without you.” Cradle had awakened human emotions and a desire to not be alone since 3000 years ago. Hence, he went against his algorithm and woke Eve up, and kept her in this eggshell so that she doesn’t go insane again.

With Queen’s help, Cradle awakens his final form… into two androids. You literally have the option to choose which android to continue your journey with. The plot is pretty much the same with some slight differences in the fluff. For simplicity sake I am going to show the shota version because I felt that one was better.

No matter who you choose, they confess their love for Eve. Their bond become so strong that even as an android, Cradle is able to operate Tierblade and be Eve’s knight. Row is not relevant in this route because Arcardia infects him with a virus and takes over him and his nanomachines very early on.

Arcadia and Cradle have another epic AI battle. However, because Cradle has human emotions and the theme of this game is that human emotions > AI calculations, he wins through thicc plot armour.

… and lives happily ever after with Eve. So yeah, I can’t call this route shallow because the middle part where Cradle awakened his human persona was kind of groundbreaking. However, I wish they just made a serious traditional route because this is such good foundation for another potential feels trip. Instead, I am given bishounen copy pasta and cannot take this route seriously anymore. I also think it’s very cliche for Cradle to beat Arcadia literally with the power of love, when Arcardia probably would have won the fight TBH. Anyways moving on.

Row (CV: Matsuoka Yoshitsugu)

Despite Row being the “hidden poster boy” with another long route & a tonne of lore dump, the fact I barely took any screenshots is telling about how I feel. I really tried to love this route. Matsuoka’s voice acting is out of this world – come to think of it, every single role he does, he gives an above and beyond performance.

Before Eve’s memories were even played yet again, we also have to watch Row’s flashbacks, dubbed “creation of the world.” For centuries, Row lost contact with Eve and was losing it. He came across Arcadia who told him that he gassed literally everyone else in Neosphere so it’s only Eve living in eternal isolation due to her nanomachines saving her life. Eventually, Row runs into the same issue of “memory overload” so Arcadia again offers to not only save his life – by creating clones of him to store his overflowing memory – but also to create an entire “human” population of flesh with microchips, and instigate war and death among them, so that they can all devote themselves to scientific research aka finding Eve, towards Row’s goal. Arcadia promises all of this with the ulterior motive of gaining control of Row’s nanomachines. He secretly infects Row with a virus that remained dormant for thousands of years but gets activated when he meets Eve and the plot needs to progress, lol.

Even if Row temporarily agrees due to the urgency of the situation of his memory needing a new home. This kid never bothered to sit down and reflect or ask himself, why does an AI devoid of human emotion suddenly want to help me? Surely it’s not because of the kindness of his heart. However, Row, like Eve in the past 3000 years, just blissfully and ignorantly lives on without ever questioning the why and what if, until Carmine tells him that he’s been played by showing Leag’s recording…

In the meantime, Carmine goes the farthest he’s ever achieved in snooping around Row/Arcadia’s secrets, not only evading Arcadia’s execution (which should be theoretically impossible because Arcadia programmed all their microchips) and stumbling across a recording left behind by Leag right before he died, about the secrets of Neosphere.

In this route, Sud wields Tierblade but still loses to Row. Row again tries to kill Eve so she can be absorbed by old Eve and they can carry out their goal of dying together through the cancelling of nanomachines. Because Eve heard the knights’ souls encouraging her to live on, she screams to Row that even though that day will come when their memories overflow again (??how, can they not just keep making clones? Can they not dispose of some memories they don’t want..? How is this logistically a problem), “that time is not now. We are still human.”

In the middle Arcardia takes over Row’s nanomachines through his virus. Eve also gets infected with the virus with her own nanomachines turning against her body. Cradle starts to make a “vaccine” against the virus (when will we learn that vaccines do not cure viral infections, they prevent contraction of disease… the same reason why I couldn’t take that case in Bustafellows common route seriously at all.) Row cries and runs into Eve’s arms, saying he’s been a good-for-nothing selfish brat and shows some remorse.

Eve recalls another memory of Gil and gains his sword. She entrusts Gil’s sword to Row, which is an act of saying, you are the person I trust most now, so protect me and be my loyal knight.

Row drives Tierblade with Eve.

Yajur fights Sud and kicks the can.

Arcardia and Row have an epic Tierblade battle. Eve arrives at the epiphany that the thermal reactor’s energy actually comes from nanomachines. Therefore, the trivial mention of Aina “breaking” some thermal reactors before Neosphere was actually her harvesting nanomachines for Row and Eve’s bodies.

Because Arcardia is counting on the thermal reactors to fund his own powers, the two are able to turn this energy against him and defeat him after some talk-no-jutsu of human > AI.

Happy end:

Arcadia awakens his humanity before he disappears and entrusts his system and wisdom to Cradle, who becomes the new AI leader of the mimic humans.

The atmosphere gets slowly restored, with Row becoming a goodie-two-shoes like Sud.

The two live happily ever after I guess?

Tragic end:

In the final battle against Arcadia, they win but at the cost of Eve’s consciousness/soul trapped in Cradle’s body. Eve used her nanomachines to restore the environment. Row takes Eve/Cradle and travels to the end of the world where Cradle’s android eventually shuts down from malfunctioning and old parts. Row is seen telling Eve “you worked so hard, it’s time to rest” and is implied that he rests forever as well.

Thoughts: I mean… Matsuoka’s vocal chords (as he did so much yelling this route) hard carried the route. Everything else I did not care about at all. My biggest pet peeve in otome game is stupidity and Row just didn’t strike me as the brightest bean in the pod. It is also hard to like him because he already grew up so privileged and still ended up doing all this crap when he was not done wrong in the first place. I’m sorry Row I’m going to have to rank you last…

Truth Route

In brief, old and new Eve work together to defeat big bad AI Arcardia. Eve then meets her brother’s soul and unlocks the memory of how Gil literally begged Aina (whose soul got incorporated in Cradle’s body this route) to deprogram all his personality and allow him to reside within the 12th Tierblade that didn’t have time to be programmed appropriately for Sud.

Everyone lives happily ever after – including both Eves who are separate. We see an ending shot of old Eve and Row visiting everyone’s grave including one presumably made for Gil. IIRC Gil also scored super high on the popularity poll. I mean, he’s a great brother and all, but I never viewed him as an LI or an outstanding character? Just meh. I do appreciate the added flashback though; rounded the story out.

Final Thoughts

This game started out extremely strong with an emotional beginning and intriguing reverse chronological narrative. Like peeling an onion, you get closer and closer to the truth until it just all hits you and with full force. However, the novelty wears off towards the later routes as except Yajur’s route they’re all repetitive. What made me ultimately decide to give 8.5/10 instead of 9+ is also the inconsistency in quality of different routes. Ending on Cradle (a parody route) and Row (which was a massive letdown for me but he was #1 in the JP poll) soured my overall opinion of the game. The other three routes were all feels trips fitting of the theme.

Mecha-themed and in general, sci-fi games are rare in the genre. Hence, I still recommend people play it because the revelation of the story is truly an amazing experience.

Eve is an interesting MC in that she is pure, innocent, but packs a lot of trauma. Some people would not be able to stand her for being so oblivious about the world to the point she is ignorant (as one of the LIs criticized her for), despite having lived thousands of years. She just sits there and does nothing all day…? Something I cannot relate with but not a deal breaker for me. I personally don’t think there are any trigger warnings in the game other than one of the LIs punch Eve to make her black out (one that hated her initially and was quite literally a war criminal).

My ranking: Yajur > Sud > Atharva > Truth > Cradle > Row

Pros: Art, overall plot, OP

Cons:
– Cradle (not a bad route but I didn’t get the appeal as I don’t think this game needs gag routes) & Row routes
– Damsel in distress MC (innocent vs. oblivious; literally cannot save herself without a man protecting her)
– Fewer romance scenes (but they are very powerful when featured), not a fluffy game, but not a game that neglects romance
– I have not watched Eva but e.g. Breadmasterlee called this game an Eva ripoff and was not happy with it… so going to relay this commentary here

Will play the FD at some point, but not in 2026.