Nameless ~The One Thing You Must Recall~ Crack Only
Eliane Lebouf
So I downloaded 'Nameless: The one thing you must recall' a few days ago, started it up and got only around 2 minutes into the game before I just decided I wasn't in the mood to play it right then, fast forward a bit to today and when I tried to start up a new game proper all I got was a white screen and blank text box, all the menu stuff still works and the buttons still make noise when I mouse over them, but nothing happens.
I read up on it a bit and apparently this is a common problem, but the old fix (deleting 'users' file for the game) apparently no longer works (and I have tried anyway) I have tried uninstalling/reinstalling the game about 3 times in both my C: drive and D: drive but that hasn't worked either. The only other 'fix' I've seen is people sharing user data files or something over email but all of those posts are way old and understandably I doubt I'll get any response from the people who had shared those files around.
The story was so well written. There were many hilarious scenes that I had to take breaks simply from laughing too hard. There were also many feel-inducing moments that were characteristic of Cheritz, which I also absolutely love. I adore how each route is part of an overarching plot and you need to complete them in order to discover the truth and reason for everything that was going on. However, I must say that there were quite a few typos throughout the game. Though they did not take away from my enjoyment of the game, they were a bit jarring at times. Having several proofreaders would be ideal to prevent any mistakes that one person might miss.
Understandably, one of the worst things that can happen to a sentient toy is for it to be abandoned by its owner. If an owner completely forgets about a toy's existence, right down to its very name, then the toy's soul ends up in a sort of purgatory (toygatory?) where it's left to suffer for eternity with nothing but its memories. There are only two ways out of toygatory: the toy must "give up" on its owner and die, or the owner must recall the toy's name and thus bring it back to the human world. The titular character, Nameless, is one such forgotten toy.
What Anhu doesn't know is that all 5 of her dolls have souls, so they're actually aware of everything she does and says to them. She also doesn't know that Nameless, her forgotten toy from childhood, is stalking her from toygatory thanks to a link between his consciousness and her diary (her first diary as a child was something she vowed to share only with him, and this bound the two things together). Nameless both loves and hates Anhu - he obsesses over her and wants to be with her forever, but he also despises her for abandoning him and wants to make her suffer as much as possible. His resentment and feelings of betrayal twist his personality into something dark and hateful, until he's wholly consumed by his desire to both possess and punish Anhu.
Hmm. A petite, boyish love interest with fluffy hair and big eyes...he must be the game's resident shota character, right? The one who gets the innocent route with tons of adorable moments? Hahahahahahahaha NOPE. Yeonho is one of the two dolls Anhu bought used, which can only mean one thing: a trauma conga line, with two of the most disturbing endings in the game!
As the story progresses, Lance realizes that everyone is shaped by the people around them, and that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. As he begins to accept himself and grow more assertive, he encourages Anhu to embrace her quirks instead of hiding them away. Emboldened, Anhu finally tells her best friends about her doll hobby, and surprise surprise, they're cool with it. The only downside to Lance's character development is that, by the end of his route, he's a bit too assertive for my tastes. He frequently teases Anhu, is forceful with his affections, and dominates their interactions (he still refers to her as "owner", but it's tongue-in-cheek, since he's clearly the one in control). I'm totally OK with power play, but I find possessiveness unappealing in the extreme, so it kind of killed the vibe for me. Though I suppose I do have to give him credit for having the single sexiest line of dialogue in the entire game. His route also has the best illustrations, so hats off to the artist.
As part of the doll company's "mature line", Yuri's release concept was "Casanova musician who's irresistibly attractive to women". Because he's essentially a stereotype of a stereotype, Yuri's personality is fucking ridiculous. He only wears designer clothes, monopolizes the bathroom for hours while he primps and preens, and is addicted to pore cleansing face-masks. He flirts with Anhu from day one, calling her "My honey" and rattling off one-liners that would give Richtits from Uta no Prince-Sama a run for his money. Yuri's other hobbies include parading around the house in nothing but a towel, watching magical girl anime, and shopping like a trust fund kid on 5th Avenue. He weasels his way into a teaching position at Anhu's school, and takes great joy in turning every lesson into an elaborate sexual innuendo. At one point his description of "playing an instrument" becomes so obviously lewd that the game cuts away to a random photo of a Shetland Pony while the programming team addresses the lapse in family-friendly content.
Because of this, Tei believes in his heart of hearts that he is repulsive and irreparably sullied. After he becomes human, he does whatever he can to distance himself from Anhu so that he won't "contaminate" her. Hobbies, extracurriculars, jobs - anything to keep him busy - but it doesn't work, because Anhu wants to be around him. He tries dating Soi to shake her off, but Soi realizes he's not truly interested and breaks up with him. Tei even drugs Anhu's tea in the evenings so that she'll be unable to stay up and spend time with him. None of it does the trick, and after awhile, Tei's shame and self-loathing start to drive him insane. He's head over heels for Anhu, but he sees his desire for her as monstrous and obscene. With no healthy outlet for his feelings, he becomes convinced that the only way he can be with her is for him to "bring her down to his level". He has all sorts of dark fantasies about hurting and ruining her, which causes him to revile himself even more, and the cycle continues. Meanwhile, Anhu starts having mental problems of her own due to Nameless's memory tampering. Fortunately, before things can go totally south, Yuri catches on and provokes Tei into confessing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. Anhu's like "holy crap, dude, you've got it all wrong. I don't care what your last owner told you. You are NOT dirty, and wanting to get your mack on is not the crime of the century". This comes as such news to Tei that the poor guy breaks down crying (his voice actor did SUCH a great job with it too, omg. Actual chills). After their impromptu therapy session, his mental health improves significantly, and he ends up being a very sensitive and generous boyfriend. ...Not that I would touch the guy with a 49 1/2 foot pole. I'm still too freaked out by his numerous bad endings, which range from psychotic and violent to creepy as hell. And that's not even counting all the times he shows up out of nowhere in other characters' bad endings and proceeds to out-crazy their crazy
Since Red is blissfully unaware of how hot he is, he's also unaware that he has a couple of psycho fangirl stalkers that want to get into his pants. One of them gives him a cookie, but before he can eat it, he encounters Anhu and learns that she skipped lunch. Seeing how hungry she is, he gives her his food. His stalker is stalking him at the time (duh) and witnesses Red's actions. Furious and jealous, she and a couple of her cronies corner Anhu the next day and drag her off into an abandoned alley to beat her up. Anhu gets knocked out, but fortunately her friends Soi and Shinbi come to her rescue before the bitchsquad can cause serious damage. She tries to keep the assault a secret from Red, but he finds out and takes it pretty hard. He berates himself for not coming to her rescue, leading Anhu to ask him why he wants to be a hero so badly. Turns out, he's not as much of a cloudcuckoolander as he seems. He knows he's not really a superhero, but he clings desperately to the fiction because it's the only identity he has. He feels like he's alone in the universe, helpless and powerless, with nothing worthwhile to contribute.
There, they encounter Anhu, who is remembering more and more of her childhood with each passing moment. Nameless panics when he sees the boytoys and grabs Anhu, threatening to harm her if they come any closer. Afraid for her safety, Anhu's dolls throw fucking acid onto Nameless's physical body, melting his fabric skin and beginning the slow process of killing him (all this and more from a company whose slogan proudly reads, "Sweet Solutions for Female Gamers". Ya-huh, sure. You keep telling yourself that, ya sickos). At this point, both Nameless and Anhu have an epiphany about the nature of their relationship. Nameless realizes that, by endangering his owner and taking her away from the people she loves, he is in fact the villain in his own story. His anger dissipates into despair, and at his core he wishes for more time with Anhu to say all the things left unsaid. She, meanwhile, recalls how she stopped playing with Nameless because the neighbor's kid made fun of her for having such a "tacky bear". This makes her realize the degree to which she has allowed other people's expectations to rule her life. Anhu begs Nameless's forgiveness, explaining that her fear of rejection and ridicule led her to forget her true self, and him along with it. The apologies come too late, however, and Yeonho, Lance, Yuri, Tei, and Red pull her out of Toygatory, leaving Nameless alone once again.
In the closing scenes, only one thing is left unclear: just how far back in time did Anhu travel in the final reset? Did she go allll the way back to the beginning, to just after the boytoys became human, before she fell in love with any of them? Or did she just go back to Red's route, before they went to the amusement park? I think the second explanation is most likely, since the last CG in the game is the same one you get when you finish Red's route, with Nameless added in. Red has his arm around Anhu, so it seems like they're the canon couple at the end. If that's true, though, then that means the other guys' timelines were erased...which is kind of sad considering how much they matured over the course of their routes. I half expected the game to ask the player to "choose" which timeline became canon, but that never panned out. Still, I can't say I'm dissatisfied with the outcome - Red's the most supportive and least (dangerously) unbalanced love interest, so he's probably the best person for Anhu.
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