Amnesia:Memories: The Clover Route (SPOILERS!)

Here comes my report about Amnesia:Memories' third route, fellow gamers! Things started off nicely, as my first run of that route landed me the normal ending. I was not going to stop at that, obviously, and started a second run during which I once again closely monitored the Parameter Gauges in order to fill up the Affection and Trust Gauge and keep the Suspicion Gauge to a minimum. This micromanagement paid off beautifully and I uncovered the Good Ending, to my immense satisfaction. It feels intensely rewarding to be able to unearth good endings all by myself without resorting to FAQs, and I commend Amnesia:Memories for offering endings that are not so ridiculously arcane that they cannot be uncovered without help. (I'm looking your way, true ending of Steins;Gate.) After that, I started a third route in which I tried to be odious to Kent for a change. This produced the "Isn't it a beautiful night?" bad ending, in which I was murdered again by Ukyo. It's worth nothing that the Clover Route is the only route that doesn't contain any 'branching path' ending, every ending in this route being generated solely by variations of the parameters. When it came to unlocking the second bad ending and last ending of the route, I suddenly grew bored of tinkering with said parameters and resorted to an FAQ for the first time since I started playing the game, which allowed me to witness the rather chilling outcome of being locked up in a ward at Kent's instigation, probably for life. In terms of parameters, this ending pops up when the Suspicion Gauge is filled up while the Affection and Trust Gauge remain low—in other words, when you're cold to Kent while behaving in a highly suspicious manner. And that, folk, was the gist of my exploration of the Clover Route.

Although I had some decent fun while clearing it, I was a trifle disappointed by this route. My main gripe is that unlike the Heart and Spade Routes, the Clover Route doesn't offer the merest shred of a clue to help the player figure out which memories they are still missing. These missing memories could be absolutely anything at all for all the player's knowledge, which forbids any kind of speculation and kills the suspense before it can even be born. Things get even worse when said missing memories are finally revealed, because the plot twist they introduce can only be described as weak at best. Learning that Toma had attacked me in the Heart Route and that Ikki was the unwitting victim of some kind of creepy love trafficking in the Spade Route had some interesting shock value, but the sudden revelation that I had been in love with Kent all along and that I was actually referring to him when I told him about my heartbreak came accross as inane and maudlin. The whole route came across as inane and maudlin, if I have to be totally honest: it solely revolved about my totally unfascinating and awkward love story with Kent, conveniently sprinkled with pieces of cheap sentimentalism such as the episode with the dog. My character was also considerably more passive and whingeing than in the other routes and Kent managed to come across as ruder, duller and more annoyingly overbearing than Shin and Ikki combined, which is quite the feat. I started feeling some lassitude after my third run, hence the use of an FAQ to unlock the last bad ending—which I wanted to witness, yet not enough to risk failed runs by searching for it myself.

That's all for the Clover Route, fellow gamers! I'll see you soon with a post about the Diamond Route. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!