History YMMV / ShadowOfDestiny

** The game goes to great lengths to explain why he must use such convoluted solutions. Basically, once he dies in a certain way, that death becomes part of his destiny, and he can't simply go back in time and do things differently; it's necessary to alter the outside circumstances of his death. To use a simple example, when he gets stabbed in the back by someone hiding behind a tree, he will ALWAYS be by that tree at that time, so his only hope to save himself is to make sure the *killer* won't be there, which he can only do by making the tree disappear. It's like we have two Eikes, the one who dies at the appointed time and the one who is back in the past trying to prevent his death. "Present Eike" will never change his actions, so "time-traveler Eike" has to change something else. The only way to warn "present Eike" is to be very careful not to cause a paradox - like throwing him an egg with a cryptic message, for example. Sometimes it's easier just to travel back in time 500 years and "delete" a tree from existence than to risk a paradox.

** The game goes to great lengths to explain why he must use such convoluted solutions. Basically, once he dies in a certain way, that death becomes part of his destiny, and he can't simply go back in time and do things differently; it's necessary to alter the outside circumstances of his death. To use a simple example, when he gets stabbed in the back by someone hiding behind a tree, he will ALWAYS be by that tree at that time, so his only hope to save himself is to make sure the *killer* won't be there, which he can only do by making the tree disappear. It's like we have two Eikes, the one who dies at the appointed time and the one who is back in the past trying to prevent his death. "Present Eike" will never change his actions, so "time-traveler Eike" has to change something else, or try to warn "present Eike" in some way that doesn't cause a paradox - like throwing him an egg with a cryptic message, for example.

** The game goes to great lengths to explain why he must use such convoluted solutions. Basically, once he dies in a certain way, that death becomes part of his destiny, and he can't simply go back in time and do things differently; it's necessary to alter the outside circumstances of his death. To use a simple example, when he gets stabbed in the back by someone hiding behind a tree, he will ALWAYS be by that tree at that time, so his only hope to save himself is to make sure the *killer* won't be there, which he can only do by making the tree disappear. It's like we have two Eikes, the one who dies at the appointed time and the one who is back in the past trying to prevent his death. "Present Eike" will never change his actions, so "time-traveler Eike" has to change something else, or try to warn "present Eike" in some way that doesn't cause a paradox - like throwing him an egg with a cryptic message, for example.

** The game goes to great lengths to explain why he must use such convoluted solutions. Basically, once he dies in a certain way, that death becomes part of his destiny, and he can't simply go back in time and do things differently; it's necessary to alter the outside circumstances of his death. To use a simple example, when he gets stabbed in the back by someone hiding behind a tree, he will ALWAYS be by that tree at that time, so his only hope to save himself is to make sure the *killer* won't be there, which he can only do by making the tree disappear. It's like we have two Eikes, the one who dies at the appointed time and the one who is back in the past trying to prevent his death. "Present Eike" will never change his actions, so "time-traveler Eike" has to change something else, or try to warn "present Eike" in some way that doesn't cause a paradox - like throwing him an egg with a message, for example.

* SoBadItsGood: The game's terrible voice acting and stupid plot has a charm for some.

** Not only that, it's Mario. Yes. [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros THAT Mario.]]

** Not only that, it's Mario. Yes. [[SuperMario64 THAT Mario.]]

** However, it's often overlooked that Eike can't control the time periods the Digipad makes available to him-he just has to work with whatever he gets. Also, given that the game is set in a small town, there are no large stores or internet cafes. There also is a way for Eike to get an iron plate in the present time.

* IdiotPlot: The game's many puzzles and problems could probably be solved in minutes if the game didn't insist on making the player use obtuse solutions. It really doesn't help that whoever wrote the story seems to be completely unfamiliar with the very concept of time travel. Nonsensical paradoxes abound. For example, in order to stop himself from getting stabbed in the back, Eike decides to get a skillet. However, he decides that he just can't get one in the time period he's in, for whatever reason, and so he decides to go back into his past, appearing as a juggler he'd previously seen, and give a message to himself telling him to get a skillet. When he goes back to the time period he was previously in, he now has a skillet in his jacket. ''Except the player already went through that period and never got the message or the skillet.'' It just seems to appear from thin air. Logically, a future version of himself should've given him the skillet, similar to ''Film/BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure''. The list goes on. From going 400 years in the past to prevent a single tree from being planted, or changing an entire movie to avoid getting run over by a car.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: [[spoiler:In the EX endings, did Eike not realize that preventing Homunculus from being created would cause him to not exist or did he knew and wanted to be free from eternal youth?]]

* ViewerGenderConfusion: Okay, raise your hand if you thought Homunculus was female. Come on, don't be shy. Even his VOICE sounds feminine - and his voice actor is MALE.

* IdiotPlot: The game's many puzzles and problems could probably be solved in minutes if Eike wasn't a complete moron who insists on making everything needlessly complicated. It really doesn't help that whoever wrote the story seems to be completely unfamiliar with the very concept of time travel. Nonsensical paradoxes abound. For example, in order to stop himself from getting stabbed in the back, Eike decides to get a skillet. However, he decides that he just can't get one in the time period he's in, for whatever reason, and so he decides to go back into his past, appearing as a juggler he'd previously seen, and give a message to himself telling him to get a skillet. When he goes back to the time period he was previously in, he now has a skillet in his jacket. ''Except the player already went through that period and never got the message or the skillet.'' It just seems to appear from thin air. Logically, a future version of himself should've given him the skillet, similar to ''BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure''. The list goes on. From going 400 years in the past to prevent a single tree from being planted, or changing an entire movie to avoid getting run over by a car.

* StealthParody: The game completely ignores its own rules. Throws out paradoxes left right and center. The protagonist goes beyond idiot hero territory right into being mentally disabled. The solutions to puzzles require extremely obtuse logic that would only be solved by random trial and error. The game plays everything dead serious and no one blinks at anyone time travelling even in cutscenes. Characters turn out to be other characters even if it means nothing in the plot and contradicts other things. The game was just made to throw in all plots and cliches of time travelling while making things needlessly complicated and contrived with no effort to make sense of any of it. To top it all off they got Mario to voice act the villain just because.

* ViewerGenderConfusion: Okay, raise your hand if you thought Homunculus was female. Come on, don't be shy. Even his VOICE sounds feminine - and his voice actor is MALE.
* StealthParody: The game completely ignores its own rules. Throws out paradoxes left right and center. The protagonist goes beyond idiot hero territory right into being mentally disabled. The solutions to puzzles require extremely obtuse logic that would only be solved by random trial and error. The game plays everything dead serious and no one blinks at anyone time travelling even in cutscenes. Characters turn out to be other characters even if it means nothing in the plot and contradicts other things. The game was just made to throw in all plots and cliches of time travelling while making things needlessly complicated and contrived with no effort to make sense of any of it. In one ending our protagonists gets accidentally killed off literally for no reason after having a cliched monologue about the beauty of life. To top it all off they got Mario to voice act the villain just because.

* StealthParody: The game completely ignores its own rules. Throws out paradoxes left right and center. The protagonist goes beyond idiot hero territory right into being mentally disabled. The solutions to puzzles require extremely obtuse logic that would only be solved by random trial and error. The game plays everything dead serious and no one blinks at anyone time travelling even in cutscenes. Characters turn out to be other characters even if it means nothing in the plot and contradicts other things. The game was just made to throw in all plots and cliches of time travelling while making things needlessly complicated and contrived with no effort to make sense of any of it. To top it all off they got Mario to voice act the villain just because.

* ViewerGenderConfusion: Okay, raise your hand if you thought Homunculus was female. Come on, don't be shy. Even his VOICE sounds feminine - and his voice actor is MALE.

* ViewerGenderConfusion: Okay, raise your hand if you thought Homunculus was female. Come on, don't be shy. Even his VOICE sounds feminine - and his voice actor is MALE.
* IdiotPlot: The game's many puzzles and problems could probably be solved in minutes if Eike wasn't a complete moron who insists on making everything needlessly complicated. It really doesn't help that whoever wrote the story seems to be completely unfamiliar with the very concept of time travel. Nonsensical paradoxes abound. For example, in order to stop himself from getting stabbed in the back, Eike decides to get a skillet. However, he decides that he just can't get one in the time period he's in, for whatever reason, and so he decides to go back into his past, appearing as a juggler he'd previously seen, and give a message to himself telling him to get a skillet. When he goes back to the time period he was previously in, he now has a skillet in his jacket. ''Except the player already went through that period and never got the message or the skillet.'' It just seems to appear from thin air. Logically, a future version of himself should've given him the skillet, similar to ''BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure''. The list goes on. From going 400 years in the past to prevent a single tree from being planted, or changing an entire movie to avoid getting run over by a car.

* IdiotPlot: The game's many puzzles and problems could probably be solved in minutes if Eike wasn't a complete moron who insists on making everything needlessly complicated.
** It really doesn't help that whoever wrote the story seems to be completely unfamiliar with the very concept of time travel. Nonsensical paradoxes abound. For example, in order to stop himself from getting stabbed in the back, Eike decides to get a skillet. However, he decides that he just can't get one in the time period he's in, for whatever reason, and so he decides to go back into his past, appearing as a juggler he'd previously seen, and give a message to himself telling him to get a skillet. When he goes back to the time period he was previously in, he now has a skillet in his jacket. ''Except the player already went through that period and never got the message or the skillet.'' It just seems to appear from thin air. Logically, a future version of himself should've given him the skillet, similar to ''BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure''. The list goes on. From going 400 years in the past to prevent a single tree from being planted, or changing an entire movie to avoid getting run over by a car.

* IdiotPlot: The game's many puzzles and problems could probably be solved in minutes if Eike wasn't a complete moron who insists on making everything needlessly complicated.
** It really doesn't help that whoever wrote the story seems to be completely unfamiliar with the very concept of time travel. Nonsensical paradoxes abound.

* YourMilageMayVary: Depending on if you played the original PS2 version, the voice acting in the PSP version will either be welcomed or hated.

* ViewerGenderConfusion: Okay, raise your hand if you thought Homunculus was female. Come on, don't be shy. Even his VOICE sounds feminine - and his voice actor is MALE.