History VisualNovel / Machi

''Machi'' (''City'', originally for the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn, renamed in the UsefulNotes/PlayStation and UsefulNotes/PlaystationPortable ports as ''Machi: Unmei no Kousaten'' lit. ''City: The Crossing Of Fate'') was the third major visual novel by [[Creator/SpikeChunsoft Chunsoft]]. After the success of ''Kamaitachi no Yoru'' and its multi-routes system, the company decided to make a far higher budget game with not just a hundred bad endings, but even multiple characters whose routes must all progress simultaneously.

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: Also in-universe. Perhaps Ichikawa believes more in the previous trope, as he doesn't hold a high opinion of Shoko's avant-garde sculptures.

* CowboyCop: Detective Gonda was somewhat overzealous when he first joined the police force, with incidents or injuries often occurring during training, [[spoiler: and caused the death of Numata's son with a stray bullet during a shootout against some bank robbers]].

* ArmorPiercingSlap: a few are delivered throught the game. Whether the person on the receiving end is in the wrong, depends on the route.
** Ryuji slaps a yakuza during a street fight. [[CombatPragmatist As he explains]], a slap is faster to throw from a relaxed stance, harder to predict than a punch, and humiliates the opponent.

''Machi'' (''City'', originally for the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn, renamed in the UsefulNotes/PlayStation and UsefulNotes/PlaystationPortable ports as ''Machi: Unmei no Kousaten'' lit. ''City: The Crossing Of Fate'') was the third major visual novel by [[Creator/SpikeChunsoft Chunsoft]]. After the success of ''Kamaitachi no Yoru'' and its multi-routes system, the company decided to make a far higher budget game with not just a hundred bad endings, but even multiple characters whose routes [[Main/UpToEleven must all progress simultaneously]].

* LighterAndSofter: compared to Chunsoft's previous output (and retroactively, to its later output as well). The mystery and horror elements are toned down, almost every route is humorous in nature, and even the serious ones still contains several[[RefugeInAudacity funny scenes]].

In the city of Shibuya, countless people live their ordinary, strange, impossible lives. For five days, we are given a glimpse of eight of these lives. [[GeniusDitz Amemiya Keima]], a [[AudienceSurrogate gamer]] junior detective, tries to solve a bombing case. [[NiceGuy Umabe Kintaro]] is a small time actor hoping for a lucky break, but instead gets into a bad situation with [[IdenticalStranger Ushio Masami]], an ex-yakuza who is accidentally involved in a robbery. [[ContemplateOurNavels Ichikawa Fumiyasu]] is a successful writer who desperately wants to break free of the trite world of TV dramas. [[FatComicRelief Hosoi Yoshiko]] is dared by her boyfriend to lose 17 kilos in five days, lest he dumps her. [[DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife Takamine Ryuji]] returns to his hometown after running away three years earlier to join the [[LegionOfLostSouls Foreign Legion]]. [[TheCasanova Tobisawa Yohei]] discovers that two of his old flings [[OneNightStandPregnancy have unfinished business]] with him. [[UnluckyEverydude Shinoda Masashi]] is blackmailed by a mysterious beauty into entering a strange organization.

* NotWithThemForTheMoney: Yohei opportunistically pulls this card on Minako when he notices that she is holding the reins of their relationship. First, he guilt-trips her into believing that she was unconsciously using her vast family money to win a trophy husband. And then, when she's almost reduced to tears, claims that he doesn't care about all that since he loves her.

* PoliceAreUseless: Keima's superiors believe the bomber is nothing more than a prankster.
* {{Ponzi}}: Hoshiko thinks the Seven Days Organization is this, [[spoiler: and she's not wrong, but the full picture is [[EvilPlan more complicated]]]].

* ProductionThrowback: One bad end has Umabe becoming a successful businessman in Osaka, a reference to the character Kayama from ''Kamaitachi no Yoru'', complete with the same music theme.

Throughout the course of five days, you will need to guide these stories to their conclusion. To make things more difficult, choices made with one character will often influence other characters' stories, and rarely the effects will be immediately apparent. There's no central plot, and the different routes won't ever tangle outside of tangential moments, but the player has to complete each day with every character before they can move on to the next day, and sometimes a story will be interrupted with a "to be continued" screen that forces you to play as another character until you find a "zap point" back to where the interruption was.

''Machi'' (''City'', originally for the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn, renamed in the UsefulNotes/PlayStation and UsefulNotes/PlaystationPortable ports as ''Machi: Unmei no Kousaten'' lit. ''City: The Crossing Of Fate'') was the third major visual novel by Chunsoft. After the success of ''Kamaitachi no Yoru'' and its multi-routes system, the company decided to make a far higher budget game with not just a hundred bad endings, but even multiple characters whose routes [[Main/UpToEleven must all progress simultaneously]].

''Machi'' (''City'', originally for the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn, renamed in the UsefulNotes/PlayStation and UsefulNotes/PlaystationPortable ports as "Machi: Unmei no Kousaten" lit. "City: The Crossing Of Fate") was the third major visual novel by Chunsoft. After the success of Kamaitachi no Yoru and its multi-routes system, the company decided to make a far higher budget game with not just a hundred bad endings, but even multiple characters whose routes [[Main/UpToEleven must all progress simultaneously]].

* LastWishMarriage: Umabe pulls this card as a final, desperate attempt to avoid execution by the Shiramine yakuza. He claims to have come all the way to their hideout, ready to accept death, just for a chance to ask for the hand of the boss' daughter Ruiko in marriage (having previously realized that Ruiko is in love with him, or rather, with Ushio). When she hears this, she begs her father to spare him. It actually works... [[RaceAgainstTheClock sort of]].

* NotWithThemForTheMoney: Yohei opportunistically pulls this card on Minako when he notices that she is holding the rein of their relationships. He first guilt-trips her into believing that she was unconsciously using her vast family money to win a trophy husband, but then claims that he doesn't care about all that since he loves her.

Throughout the course of five days, you will need to guide these stories to their conclusion. To make things more difficult, choices made with one character will often influence other characters' stories, and rarely the effects will be immediately apparent. There's no central plot, and the different routes won't ever tangle outside of tangential noments, but the player has to complete each day with every character before they can move on to the next day, and sometimes a story will be interrupted with a "to be continued" screen that forces you to play as another character until you find a "zap point" back to where the interruption was.

** Ryuji slaps a yakuza wakashu during a street fight. [[CombatPragmatist As he explains]], a slap is faster to throw from a relaxed stance, harder to predict than a punch, and humiliates the opponent.

In the city of Shibuya, countless people live their ordinary, strange, impossible lives. For five days, we are given a glimpse of eight of these lives. [[Nerd Amemiya Keima]], a [[AudienceSurrogate gamer]] junior detective, tries to solve a bombing case. [[NiceGuy Umabe Kintaro]] is a small time actor hoping for a lucky break, but instead gets into a bad situation with [[IdenticalStranger Ushio Masami]], an ex-yakuza who is accidentally involved in a robbery. [[ContemplateOurNavels Ichikawa Fumiyasu]] is a successful writer who desperately wants to break free of the trite world of TV dramas. [[FatComicRelief Hosoi Yoshiko]] is dared by her boyfriend to lose 17 kilos in five days, lest he dumps her. [[DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife Takamine Ryuji]] returns to his hometown after running away three years earlier to join the [[LegionOfLostSouls Foreign Legion]]. [[TheCasanova Tobisawa Yohei]] discovers that two of his old flings [[OneNightStandPregnancy have unfinished business]] with him. [[UnluckyEverydude Shinoda Masashi]] is blackmailed by a mysterious beauty into entering a strange organization.

In the city of Shibuya, countless people live their ordinary, strange, impossible lives. For five days, we are given a glimpse of eight of these lives. [[BunnyEarsLawyer Amemiya Keima]], a [[AudienceSurrogate gamer]] junior detective, tries to solve a bombing case. [[NiceGuy Umabe Kintaro]] is a small time actor hoping for a lucky break, but instead gets into a bad situation with [[IdenticalStranger Ushio Masami]], an ex-yakuza who is accidentally involved in a robbery. [[ContemplateOurNavels Ichikawa Fumiyasu]] is a successful writer who desperately wants to break free of the trite world of TV dramas. [[FatComicRelief Hosoi Yoshiko]] is dared by her boyfriend to lose 17 kilos in five days, lest he dumps her. [[DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife Takamine Ryuji]] returns to his hometown after running away three years earlier to join the [[LegionOfLostSouls Foreign Legion]]. [[TheCasanova Tobisawa Yohei]] discovers that two of his old flings [[OneNightStandPregnancy have unfinished business]] with him. [[UnluckyEverydude Shinoda Masashi]] is blackmailed by a mysterious beauty into entering a strange organization.

* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: to keep the game from becoming impossible to manage, your choices will only ever affect the current day. You can start each new day without having to worry about keeping track of your earlier actions.

** Ryuji slaps a yakuza during a street fight. [[CombatPragmatist As he explains]], a slap is faster to throw from a relaxed stance, harder to predict than a punch, and humiliates the opponent.

* BigBad: more than one, given the multiple routes. On the other hand, [[NoAntagonist not every character]] has one.
* BigEater: given her eating habits, it's a wonder Yoshiko doesn't get any fatter. At one point she enters a restaurant and orders ''everything''.

* BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord: averted. Sunday believes that blackmailing makes people happier, both the victim and the blackmailer, [[InsaneTrollLogic since these are thrills one wouldn't normally experience in life]]. [[spoiler: It's just an excuse, of course]].
* BlatantLies: as each girl accidentally finds him walking around with another of his flings, Yohei has to make up increasingly implausible reasons as to why he would associate with other girls.

* CliffHanger: whenever a [[ToBeContinued continue point]] appears, it's usually during one of these.

* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: the ditzy police cosplayer, whom the developer notes reveal to be a martial arts expert, casually floors a drunken Ryuji. [[AmbiguousSituation Probably]].

* DesperatelyCravesAffection: the stoic Ichikawa eventually resorts to begging Shoko to let him sleep on her lap.
* DistractedByTheSexy: happens most often to Masashi, but Keima is not exempt either, and it can lead to a couple bad endings.

* DroppingTheBombshell: poor Yohei gets hit hard by this several times, courtesy of his ex-conquests.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: most of the characters have to suffer quite a lot before they finally get a chance to enjoy life again.

* FissionMailed: [[spoiler: when Geronimo is captured]] at 2pm of the last day, you get a proper ending screen and the story seems to be over. More abstute players will notice that the endings counter hasn't increased, and everyone else's story ends at 8pm instead. If you select Keima's scenario again after completing more routes, he'll discover that [[spoiler: Geronimo was merely an agent and the real mastermind is still out there]]. Later ports removed the fake ending screen in exchange for a less deceiving continue point instead.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: we get a hint that Minako [[spoiler: has had a child already]] in her very first appearance, when the narrator says she was absent from school for a whole year "to recuperate from some illness".

* GenreRoulette: the eight routes have wildly different flavors, and since you need to jump between them all the time, the whole picture will come across as this.
* GetRichQuickScheme: how Sunday depicts the Seven Days Organization to others. Masashi is easily fooled.

* ItsASmallWorldAfterAll: among the roughly 200 thousands inhabitants in the large area of Shibuya, these eight strangers just happen to meet each other constantly in the course of five days. Partially justified because, while the protagonists are strangers to each other, the secondary characters tend to be related to more than one of them: for example, Shiramine is at once Ushio's previous boss, a relative of Yohei's girlfriend, and one of Masashi's blackmail victims.

* LightningBruiser: very few people can stand up to Ryuji in a fight. Even having the advantage in numbers won't help them. He'll close the distance in a flash, shrug off knife wounds, and roundhouse your face effortlessly.

* TheManBehindTheMan: in Keima's story the player is led to believe that Geronimo is the BigBad, but he's actually being maneuvered by [[spoiler:the real mastermind, [[MentorArchetype Numata]]]].

* [[TheManyDeathsOfYou The Many Deaths Of Them]]: with over a hundred bad endings, almost all with their own accompanying pictures, it's to be expected. Although some of the bad endings are actually quite happy by any other standards.
* [[spoiler:MarryThemAll]]: admittedly, it was the only possible conclusion for [[spoiler: Yohei]].

* OldMaster: parodied with Thursday. His old age and zen-like mottos command respect, but in truth he's just as crazy as every other member of the organization.

* ParodyReligion: the Cabbage Cult is played for laughs, [[spoiler: but it's [[TheReveal later revealed]] to be part of Sunday's plan to enslave everyone]].

* PostEndGameContent: some of the bad endings are only available after you complete the eight routes and watch the credits.
* ProductionThrowback: one bad end has Umabe becoming a successful businessman in Osaka, a reference to the character Kayama from ''Kamaitachi no Yoru'', complete with the same music theme.

* StagedShooting: a variation. [[spoiler: Ushio pretends to shoot Detective Kujii dead (which is grounds for capital punishment) to scare Sanji into confessing that they are not accomplices... which is just what Ushio needed the police to hear.]].

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: near the end of Ichikawa's story, the pictures and even the music start to become distorted as he finally loses his grip on sanity. We never find out if [[spoiler:the [[EvilHand five little men]] living in Ichikawa's fingers are real [[SplitPersonality or not]]]].

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: also in-universe. Perhaps Ichikawa believes more in the previous trope, as he doesn't hold a high opinion of Shoko's avant-garde sculptures.

* UnstoppableRage: getting [[MeaningfulName Ushio]] angry at you is not a good idea. In his Yakuza days, he was known as the Mad Bull.

* WeirdnessMagnet: even the developers point out that Yoshiko only ever seems to attract strange men.

* {{Yakuza}}: a big part of the story. Because the character perspective changes depending on the route, they can sometimes be portrayed as reasonable and honorable, or sometimes not quite as romanticized as in other media.

The same template would be later used in its spiritual successor VisualNovel/FourTwoEightShibuyaScramble.

** Ryuji slaps a yakuza during a street fight. [[CombatPragmatist As he explains]], a slap is faster to throw from a relaxed stance, more difficult to predict, and will humiliate the opponent.

* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: the ditzy police cosplayer, whom the developer notes reveal to be a martial arts expert, floors a drunken Ryuji.

* TheStarscream: [[SmugSnake Yamabuki]] involuntarily kicks off Ushio and Umabe's stories in his plan to take Shiramine's place as the local yakuza boss.

* SweetTooth: Umabe is quite fond of sweets. Ushio is not. [[OutOfCharacterAlert If Sanji notices]], that's a bad ending for you.
** On the opposite side of the coin, Umabe can't handle alcohol at all, while Ushio isn't even fazed. That's how Michiru understands they are not the same person.

** The normally meek Umabe will enter this state after drinking too much alcohol.

* Demonization: justified. After Ryuji delivers a swift beating to the manga artist [[TheFriendNobodyLikes Norio]], the latter starts drawing him as the villain of his story, complete with vampire teeth and demonic blank eyes.

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: despite being an artist himself, Ichikawa doesn't hold a high opinion of Shoko's avant-garde sculptures.

* AutoSave: the Saturn version is doing it all the time, at ten in-game minutes intervals, and a developer note gloats about it too. When the game was later ported to the PS1, since that console can't save without accessing the memory card first, a manual save is required before you can quit the game safely, and the note was changed.