Re:Initiate Episode 3

From AlternateSSBM Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search
Re:Initiate Episode 3
Re:Initiate Episode 3
Released December 1st, 2020
Preceded by Re:Initiate Episode 2
Followed by Re:Initiate Red
Developer SUNSHADOW

Re:Initiate Episode 3 is a role-playing video game developed by SUNSHADOW for PC and Mac. The game is the third installment in the Re:Initiate series, and the final of the initial trilogy of connected and numerically titled episodes. It is based on the original 2014 Skype chat logs, though much of the story features original characters and storylines. Re:Initiate Episode 3 focuses on Sinon's metaphysical struggle after the events of Episode 2.

Gameplay[edit | edit source]

The game is a standard turn-based role-playing game, featuring a top-down view of characters and events along with a separate battle screen where the player and enemies take turns attacking each other. Items can be found along the way or purchased using in-game currency to affect the player's status. The game frequently switches perspective between characters, with the three main acts of the game featuring three different player characters, along with several additional non-player characters who join the player's party. There are also hundreds of non-player characters to talk to that make comedic, often fourth wall–breaking comments.

Episode 3 made improvements to the gameplay of previous installments, such as general smoothness and FPS fixes along with a remodeled battle system including the addition of enemy health bars.

Plot[edit | edit source]

Sinon stands in an endless body of water as the message "Life keeps going." repeats five times. Shion appears and asks Sinon why she ran away over and over, eventually yelling at her and calling her a "spoiled bitch." Yoshino appears and says there is no difference between him and Shion -- they are both killers. Sinon doesn't seem to recognize either of them. Yoshino turns into Shion as the sky turns red. A copy of Sinon appears in front of her and lectures her about how she shouldn't have run away. All three people (the two Shions and the second Sinon) turn into Yoshino and repeatedly say, "Listen to me. I'm you!"

Sinon wakes up in Newton Field lying in the grass. She gets up and is approached by a woman who tells her about an event where each month, players have a chance to fight a dragon and win a prize. As it turns out, Johnathan is the one behind the event. He calls Sinon up to fight the dragon, and she defeats it with ease. Johnathan leaves without paying, flustered by the crowd calling him out for not giving away the money. Suddenly, Chizuru and the Men of the Water appear, quickly picking off members of the crowd and killing them. Sinon nervously confronts the Men of the Water, and Chizuru tells her she looks familiar before exasperatedly telling the men to kill her. Sinon and one of the members of the crowd, Hideaki, team up and fight off the Men of the Water as they escape the scene. Hideaki and Sinon lightly celebrate, but after one of the surviving crowd members says something that triggers a flashback to her earlier vision of Yoshino and Shion, Sinon collapses.

Karuban, Natsumi, and Fukigen'na argue about if Fukigen'na should be allowed to fight the boss the next day -- the three of them just got out of a player meeting where strategies were discussed for defeating the recently discovered first boss of the game, which would be the first step to winning the game and escaping the virtual world. Fukigen'na relentlessly demands that he be allowed to fight the boss, but Natsumi is weary, and Karuban quickly becomes angry with him. Eventually, to Natsumi's dismay, Karuban decides to let Fukigen'na fight the boss if he can defeat him in a duel. However, Karuban's duel request to Fukigen'na is intercepted by Shion, who appears out of nowhere and takes Fukigen'na's place in the duel. Shion immediately wins before running off again.

Re:Initiate Episode 3

Shion after taking Fukigen'na's place in the duel with Karuban.

That night, Natsumi goes into town to buy food for a late dinner. Along the way, she runs into Shion, who she thanks for taking Fukigen'na's place in the duel and making him quiet down. Though Shion clearly doesn't want to talk for long, he reluctantly agrees to show Natsumi where to buy good ingredients, since he is also out shopping for food. The two of them enter a shop, and Shion agrees to pay for and split the highly expensive "Ragout Rabbit Meat" with her. Natsumi is extremely grateful and ropes an increasingly reluctant Shion to go back to the inn room with her so she can hand over an item to repay him. In the inn room, Natsumi gives Shion a Shining Star, an item that she says is so helpful she can't even explain it. Shion tries to decline it, but Natsumi urges him to take it and gives him a hug. While they embrace, Karuban wakes up from his nap on the carpet and runs out of the room, devastated. Shion decides to go after Karuban to clear up the misunderstanding.

Sinon and Hideaki venture through a dark cave in search of a powerful weapon that they believe one of the monsters has a chance of dropping. They find a man with white hair who tells them that the monsters do not drop the weapon before transforming into a multi-eyed monster and attacking Sinon and Hideaki. The man-turned-monster is defeated and drops a Void Defender, the weapon they were looking for. Sinon explains its true use to her: it lights up when players who have killed other players are in a certain radius, allowing them to know when the Men of the Water are nearby. After leaving the cave, Sinon and Hideaki go eat at a restaurant. While there, Hideaki thanks Sinon for helping him break out of his shell before apologizing for betraying her as a member of the Men of Water comes through the door and paralyzes her. Sinon ends up in a distorted dream world, where images from her past and other disturbing imagery flash on the screen as she runs along a path through a seemingly endless void. Eventually, she arrives at the end of the path and is greeted by hallucinations of Yoshino, the Men of the Water, and herself, before she returns to consciousness, finding herself in an interrogation room in the Men of the Water HQ with Hideaki manning the computer and Chizuru sitting across from her. Chizuru thanks her for getting them the Void Defender, then tells her that she is going to be drugged up and put behind a mask, becoming just like any other of the brainwashed guild members.

Re:Initiate Episode 3

Sinon finds herself in a hypnotic world filled with hallucinations.

Shion finds Karuban on the other side of a stone wall using a tracker. He explains everything, but Karuban still thinks he is lying, and is unrelentingly angry at him for what he saw. Shion gives a speech to Karuban about how much Natsumi and Fukigen'na need him to return, and how he knows he is playing the game wrong as a solo player but that Karuban needs to stop abandoning the players who love him. Shion then jumps over the wall with a Teleportation Crystal in hand, pushing it onto Karuban and forcing him to teleport home.

The next day, a disguised Shion arrives with all the other participating players in the dungeon to defeat the first boss. Karuban, Natsumi, and Fukigen'na are all there together, but do not recognize Shion. Shion arrives in the boss room first, but is quickly followed by everyone else as they find the door and go in behind him. The boss appears, and the players use their strategy of rotating different squads in and out of the battle to combat it. During the battle, the leader of the operation, Touma, rushes in to try to get the final strike, but is killed, enraging Shion, who starts taking on the boss on his own without the squad rotations to avenge Touma. At first, it seems hopeless for him, but he suddenly learns a new ability called "Courage Spark"; Shion deduces that Natsumi's Shining Star gave him the ability. Courage Spark is extremely powerful, and Shion makes quick work of the boss with it, winning the battle. The players cheer for Shion, but his disguise wore off during the fighting, so he is seen by Natsumi, Karuban, and Fukigen'na. However, the three of them are smiley and back together, happy for him -- and Karuban is especially happy, knowing that he was right to have a good feeling about Shion.

Re:Initiate Episode 3

Shion and one of the rotating squads fight the boss.

Meanwhile, at the Men of the Water HQ, Sinon uses a Voice Modifier to trick Hideaki into opening the lock so she can escape the interrogation room. She knocks Hideaki unconsciousness before running out of the room and running into a large facility with several of the hooded figures apparently in the middle of being brainwashed. She eventually makes it to a dark, half-destroyed room, the same room Yoshino had used to torture Rosa (Episode 2). Chizuru is in the room, begging Sinon to kill her and repeating "He can't do that to me anymore." Flashbacks are shown of Chizuru in the same position Rosa was in, revealing that Yoshino abused her in the same way and that Chizuru was manipulated into acting the way she did. As Sinon stands still, locked in fear, Chizuru reveals a code and tells her to "end it" before jumping down a hole to her death. Sinon presses a button outside and activates it using the code, activating a gas leak sequence in the HQ that will kill everyone inside. Sinon tries to find an exit.

Sinon again finds herself in the endless body of water, the dream world from the beginning of the game. Yoshino talks to her and says it's finally time for him to leave her head. He tells her to catch up with Shion someday before replacing himself with a copy of her and saying "Listen to me. I'm you!" again.

Development[edit | edit source]

After the harsh reception Episode 2 received, SUNSHADOW went completely quiet on social media, leaving the community in the dark on the development of the third installment in the series. Although Kyle Layton had posted frequent development updates for the previous two episodes, he started working on the third in secret with a smaller team. Although the team was smaller, the game's design was much more sophisticated, as new mechanics were added that gave players many positive "quality of life" changes. Since Layton never revealed anything about Episode 3 during its development, it is unknown when exactly development started and ended. After a year passed, many in the Initiate subreddit thought the third episode would never be released, and there was even some community effort to enlist a new team of developers to make a third game in SUNSHADOW's absence. However, a fan-made third game was never fully realized. Through the entire gap between Episode 2 and Episode 3, there was no advertising or social media posts by anyone involved in the game's development.

Release[edit | edit source]

Re:Initiate Episode 3 was released for free on December 1st, 2020, exactly two years after the release of Episode 2, for PC and Mac. The way it was released was peculiarly straightforward, considering there had been two years of total silence before it: the SUNSHADOW Twitter account simply tweeted out the link to the game download, and Layton posted the same link on the Initiate subreddit. There were no words attached to either of the posts -- just the link. This sent the community into complete chaos, with the subreddit becoming extremely active and Twitch streamers scrambling to stream the game first.

This time, the response to the game was overwhelmingly positive. The story of the game's sudden release picked up significant media attention, as more people than ever were brought into the Initiate community. Serious game journalists wrote articles for and reviewed the game, giving it even more praise.