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13 Sentinels is a meandering, emotional mess of a science fiction story–that only just works

by Amr (@siegarettes)

• 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
• Developer: Vanillaware
• Publisher: Atlus, SEGA
• PS4

Relentless in artistic and storytelling ambition, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim still comes off as lacking in confidence. It takes plenty of risks, and in presentation at least marches forward with a swagger that makes it clear Vanillaware knew how many people they could bring in purely on the promise of their incredible 2D artwork and its time-travel, mech centric premise, myself included. Yet by the time the credits roll on the game 13 Sentinels’ big ideas and ambitious remixes of the adventure game formula feel more like distractions than essential components of its storytelling. 

At its heart, 13 Sentinels is a visual novel style adventure game, played from a sidescrolling perspective. In order to produce the absurd level of detail put into the 2D artwork, scenes and animations are constantly reused, restricting the story to only a few key locations that’ll become very familiar by the end of the game. It’s an intimate story that seems borne both of necessity and intention, trading detail for pure visual variety. Returning Vanillaware and visual novel fans will feel right at home here, while fans of more sprawling adventures might initially be surprised. 

What it lacks in geographical scale it makes up temporal scale and its rapidly expanding cast. 13 Sentinels takes place across five different time periods, and, as you might have guessed from the name, tells the story through thirteen different protagonists. Stories jump around through points in time, with various time specific incarnations of each of them even making appearances. 

It becomes complicated to track, especially given character storylines often leave out huge chunks of a timeline in order to let it be filled in during another character’s plot. One chapter might have you complete an objective, only for the next to take place far after the results of your actions, leaving you at a loss to what happened in the meantime. It’s convoluted to the point where the game offers a dedicated Analysis mode, where you can unlock glossary entries for characters and places, as well as put the game’s events into proper chronological order. 

There’s an enjoyable puzzle box aspect to reconstructing what’s actually happening alongside the characters, but it doesn’t always pay off, particularly when you have to put one character’s story on hold to dip into other character stories, or the bothersome Destruction segments, which provide the “action” part of the game. Just over a third into the game however, I’d practically solved the puzzle box conspiracy beneath it, then spent about 20 more hours waiting for the reveals to occur within the story, and not exactly in a “dramatic irony” kind of way. 

I was still plenty invested in the characters and their fates, and story progress is at least gated in a way that paces out the story well, but at this point the broken up plot structure was more getting in my way of seeing the story through than adding any real intrigue. Especially with so many character stories rewinding back progress to reiterate ideas already explored. It became little more than a distraction, one that betrayed Vanillaware’s confidence that they could sell the game on its story alone. 

If the mystery box structure is a distraction, though, the Destruction segments are the equivalent of setting the next town over on fire. Attached to the main part of the game are pseudo-real time strategy sections. Action takes place over a short amount of time where you need to defend a specific point, with the game pausing to give you a moment whenever you choose commands. Up to six of the thirteen cast members can be operated during a mission, with the rest staying back to defend the point. Plenty of sub-systems and unit types are introduced during its runtime, but in the end it all boils down to rudimentary tower defense that isn’t particularly challenging for anyone with a basic understanding of the genre. 

Destruction mode is flashy, inoffensive, and sometimes even fun, but it misses a trick by not integrating any of the incredible art seen during its main game into the action. Aside from character portraits and small, postage sized previews of each attack, Destruction mode takes place entirely within a cold tactical map view, with little more than small icons representing your characters and enemies. The sound and hit effects manage to still sell the impact of your moves, and there’s excitement in seeing so many missiles and explosions take place that they cause the frame rate to plummet, but without even animated cut-ins of the attacks, the action here really lacks the humanity and charm present in the rest of the game. 

At the same time, the interface manages to be so visually busy that it becomes difficult to make out important information. I felt relieved that it never asked much of me, because the few times I did manage to fail it was because I lost important information in the noise, like the fact a certain enemy was shielding others, or even the fact that my character was taking damage. 

Destruction mode in ultimately nothing more than a break from the story, and not always a welcome one. It gives of the feeling of something grafted on because Vanillaware felt they couldn’t hold their audience’s attention without some kind of action sequence. Honestly, aside from a few moments near the end, it rarely does anything to add to the story, and the few events that occur during its events are almost entirely disconnected from anything that happens within the main plot. Vanillaware struggles so hard to make this part compelling, they literally had to stop me from progressing the story by gating character progress behind it, and forcing me to unlock entries in the glossary with currency that can only be earned here. It could be cut entirely, vastly improving the pacing of the game as a whole. 

Nothing makes it more clear how out of place it is than the prologue, which chops up segments of several characters’ plots, jumps between timelines and interrupts itself after each chapter with a Destruction segment that acts as a tutorial, making the narrative even more disjointed. I’d go so far towards saying that the prologue itself is the worst part of 13 Sentinels as a whole, condensing all its flaws into the weakest pitch for what eventually becomes a genuinely fantastic tale. 

The prologue makes sure 13 Sentinels gets off on a weak start, and combined with its first steps treading immediately in well worn science fiction tropes, you’d be forgiven for not believing that Vanillaware won’t be able to pull it off. Time travel, terminators, kaiju and plenty of other in-universe homages to 80’s pop culture create a familiar atmosphere, getting you a little too comfortable in your assumptions before setting up a constantly unraveling thread of reveals. Shades of Koji Suzuki’s RING novels appear here, foreshadowing similar late story twists with a similar kind of investigative voice. 

Through all its narrative experimentation, what ties it all together by the end is the cast itself. 13 Sentinels is ultimately a romantic tragedy about the ties made by a group of survivors. They change, develop, falter and even transcend time and consciousness, but they remain connected and can’t help returning as catalysts for each other. And like its characters, 13 Sentinels is often a mess, confused about what it wants to achieve, and not always able to express itself well. But it’s a heartfelt mess–a genuine one–and sometimes saying it with your heart means more than picking the perfect words.