13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is a 2019 video game by Vanillaware. It is available on PS4 and Nintendo Switch. It is a game of two halves, containing a visual novel time travel story along with pausable real time tactics battles. Finally progress in the other two modes will unlock mystery points, which includes archive entries with additional details. The plot contains lots of sci-fi homages and a big time travel mystery to understand.
The game is very non-linear once you complete the prologue, so we won’t be enforcing specific targets each week. Mostly I’m starting this thread because I’m playing the game anyway, so wanted somewhere to talk about it 
How long to beat estimates the game takes about 30 to 36 hours. I’m about 20% in per the VN and combat percentages at about 6 hours so that tracks.
Spoiler Handling
- Because of the aforementioned non-linearity, it’s hard to know what routes others have played or not played, so I suggest any spoiler details are tagged as Character Name - Section Name, or if the section name itself is spoilery, then a rough percentage in that character’s route, as given by the character select screen
- However, some characters paths are branchier than others, so the percentages can sometimes be achieved via different routes.
- Archive entries can be tagged as mystery file #xxx or event archive #xxx
- Destruction mode entries can be tagged as (Prologue/Area X - Wave Y)
- And don’t dump wiki info on people
General Advice
- The game is relatively challenging from a vocab POV and does have plenty of sci-fi vocab. However, you’ll also know a lot of that vocab already like UFO, EXT, タイムトラベル、etc.
- You can replay everything in the journal while you’re still in the mission, this includes a lot of seemingly incidental combat dialogue
Playable Characters
I guess this could be considered mildly spoilery if you haven’t yet finished the prologue, or don’t look too closely at the box art, so it’s collapsed here. Provided with names and readings, so you don’t have to look them up on the wiki. Some readings are relatively normal, others are… not in my IME. Inner spoilers contain character pictures
Playable Characters
鞍部 十郎（Kurabe Juurou）
冬坂 五百里（Fuyusaka Iori）
薬師寺 恵（Yakushiji Megumi）
関ヶ原映 瑛（Sekigahara Ei）
南 奈津乃（Minami Natsuno / Nacchan)
I’m not 100% sure that Nacchan’s regular sprite complies with forum rules and didn’t want to risk spoilers trying to dig too deep for her uniform sprites. She’s the girl in bloomers.
比治山 隆俊（Hijiyama Takatoshi)
緒方 稔二（Ogata Nenji）
きさらぎ とみ（Kisaragi Tomi / Usami）
網口 愁（Amiguchi Shuu）
鷹宮 由貴（Takamiya Yuki）
東雲 諒子（Shinonome Ryoko）
三浦 慶太郎（Miura Keitaro）
郷登 蓮也（Gouto Renya）
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At around 25%, I’ve put my thoughts into notes in Obsidian and the resulting graph looks like this:
Plot Connections Graph
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Huh, I assumed this was on steam somewhere but I guess not. I heard from game gengo that it’s good practice material because of how accessible all the text is with logs and things. It looked pretty but I never checked it out. I’ll have to keep an eye on the thread but since I want to play eventually it I’ll just not click anything spoilered.
zoomed in cover image
It’s probably unrelated but this looks like Anya from Spy x Family in a bowler hat.
Yeah, it’s kind of weird since VNs and adjacent things were usually the most likely to get a PC port of Japanese games. It was going to be a Sony exclusive with PS4 and Vita ports, but then the Vita died before they finished the game and I guess they decided to port to Switch instead.
Ok, so here’s my speculation so far on 6 of the character routes, since that’s as much as I feel like typing up a lunch time. For context, I played a bunch more last night and I’m now 30% through overall. Anyway, I’m going to use romanised names here because wow my IME does not want to type some of these spellings. I assume there’s hidden meanings in kanji selection for at least some of them.
Thoughts by character
Kurabe - Prologue only
- We saw in Tomi’s prologue that he crash lands in 2025 from further in the future, and from Megumi’s prologue we saw he gets amnesia-d to recover in 1985.
- Based on the reactions of Gouto in the combat sequences, and appearing in a bunch of other character’s pasts, he’s probably one of the longest “resistance” members?
- From Iori’s route - We see teen Kurabe interact with teen Iori in the 2090s and adult Iori duel with adult Kurable in 2105
- Conclusion: Kurabe is from the 2090-2105 period
Tomi - 35%
- This one is pretty self-evident from her prologue, herself and Megumi are from the 2020s
- From Yuki’s route: A slight wrinkle in that there seems to be a doppelganger in Yuki’s route with the wounded leg. I think this might literally be another timeline Tomi but also there might be replicants around?
- She’s ended up back in the 2025 apocalypse after the 1985 attacks
- It’s interesting that she seems very close with Megumi in 2025 and doesn’t appear to even consider her in 1985. Perhaps this is from conflict over Kurabe’s treatment
- Called Usami by her friends in 1985 because she uses the 兎（うさぎ）kanji for the To in her name. This is one I could have figured out before starting Japanese even, thanks to a certain 雪兎
Iori - 70%
- This one is interesting, she certainly thinks she’s just a regular 1985 girl.
- But I’m not convinced… we’ve seen Iori in the 2090s also looking like she’s living there too, and interacting with Kurabe.
- I think she’s actually like Kurabe, in 1985 with false memories, and probably there for much longer than Kurabe
Chihiro - NPC
- Another point of confusion for Iori comes from Nenji’s route: He follows an Iori that turns into Chihiro, then into Iori again, then into adult Iori and/or Morimura-sensei, then shoots Nenji
- In a scene in 2065 she clearly gets identified as Morimura, but then in 2105, Kurabe also identifies her as Iori, so…
- I think that Chihiro / Morimura-sensei is actually just Iori from another timeline at this point.
- Which does mean she’s sort of.. wiping her own memory
- She seems to be from further in the future than Gouto based on their interactions in 2065.
- She also seems to get regressed to a child when accompanying Gouto to 2025. It’s interesting that no one else, especially her companion gets affected by time travel this way.
- But then there’s actual child-brain Chihiro in 1945 living with Tama and Miura in the Kurabe household. Is this just a long cover? It’s sort of… Miura’s entire character motivation, so will cause problems if true.
Ida - NPC
- Also seems to be from a far future with Tsukino and Morimura.
- Possibly a founding member of the resistance?
- Gouto’s route: Stays behind to sacrifice himself in 2065
- Yuki’s route: Has a resemblance to the police chief in 1985. Maybe I should replay and find out
- Ryoko’s route: Close to Ryoko in 2065. Sekigahara does not approve. They all seem to know about the sentinels at this point
Nenji - 30%
- Despite his biker gang looks and images, and constant fights, it’s clear that’s sort of acting out for some reason and actually is pretty decent, repeatedly protecting people from the thugs.
- Mostly… he does have a go at Miura in his route.
- He seems to be stuck in a time loop just before the 1985 invasion trying to find a “key” for the mysterious voice. Is this key for a sentinel?
- Tomi’s route - His father works for the company who’s name I’m terrible at remembering. The company also seems to have built the deimos , maybe in the 2080s, maybe from their space colonies
Vanillaware, up to now, doesn’t put games on PC ever, unfortunately.
