Tear Jerker / Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2

"Your heart must have been broken so many times, it's like you've forgotten you even have one."

— Hanna to Jihl

This game isn't quite as melancholy as its predecessor, but the horrors of war and loss are still a very major part of the story, for a start.

This is a Moments page, so all spoilers are unmarked per wiki policy. You Have Been Warned.

---

• The ending of the third chapter, "The Palace of Silence". Dear god. After weakening the Taranis, the children attempt to teleport Hanna and Britz back into the Tarascus. After Britz is successfully recovered, Hanna's silhouette appears for a moment… before Jihl's attack on the Tarascus causes Hanna's atoms to dissipate right in front of them. The kids escape the destroyed tank, and stare as they try to grasp what had happened. And it's here where "Elegy of Winds" makes its return, letting the player know just what's happened. The kids desperately try to search the empty Taranis to see if Hanna was still there, and all they find is her jacket.
  • Malt flashes back to the scene from the first game's backstory where Hanna, Malt and Mei are tending moosheep together. Hanna fades into the same black scribble that emphasizes how one of the children is dead.
  • Despite how a number of players found her to be too boring and flat in the first game (and even in this one), it should still be noted that Hanna was the Team Mom for the crew in-story. She cared for and played with Mei, Chick, Hack and Wappa. She helped Boron become more okay with his size. She helped Sheena accept that there was more to her than just her powers. She did her best to keep Malt from overexerting himself. She was the heart of the crew, and now there's a hole where she once was. It's no wonder that they're all incredibly pissed at Jihl— Hero Mode levels of pissed— the moment he shows his face.
  • The moment where the kids' righteous fury towards Jihl results in the creation of the Exo-Taranis is a pretty awesome one… and then it's undercut since the result is still too low on power to move or fight, forcing the kids to watch helplessly as Jihl and the Belenos escape.
  • What's the ending card for this chapter? Just Malt, Hanna and Mei in their designs from the first game, helping each other with the laundry.
  • Once Britz wakes up, the looks on everyone's faces already make it clear to him that Hanna died. It's the normally standoffish Kyle who bursts into tears first, with everyone else following in turn… except for Malt.

• Yes, Jihl is an aggressive antagonist and you will come to hate him over the course of the first half of the game, but after taking the Belenos and traumatizing the children through taking out Hanna, Chapter 4 opens by showing that he's having second thoughts about his planned rampage across Gasco, indicating that there's more to him than just being a callous monster. We then flash back to before he used Hanna and Britz as weapons against the Tarascus in the previous chapter, and learn that when Hanna desperately asked him why he would do such horrible things to the kids, Jihl made a rant about how he's been subjected to cruelty his entire life. Jihl was likely just attempting to get her to shut up, but Hanna instead took the moment to express sympathy, responding to him with the page quote. Jihl was too filled with resentment to stomach it.
  • There's also him giving the mother of all Freudian Slips mid-rant. Despite him trying to express his hatred towards her later in the game, it's clear as early as now that he misses her. Hanna notably picks up on it, having been the Team Mom of the children herself.
    Jihl: They even took Mama away from me…

• While none of the kids feel like talking to one another after Hanna's death and only keep chasing after the Belenos with the bare minimum of determination, Malt is definitely shown to not be in his right mind. He's the leader of the team and the one who puts it upon himself to keep the other kids safe, so losing Hanna hits his psyche the hardest.
  Malt: I get that some of you don't want to fight anymore… But I have to go on. I can't let Jihl get away with what he's done. I'm going. There's nothing else I can do.
  • The music for Chapter 4 is a sadder and lower-tempo remix of "Holy Samoyede" from Solatorobo: Red the Hunter. The music doesn't change during battles, showing just how distraught the children are.
  • The chapter ends with Malt, finally alone after struggling and failing to keep it together for his friends, howling about Hanna's death. The Library entry for this illustration has this as its caption:
    Grief over the loss of Hanna... regret over causing his friends pain... remorse at his own unworthiness... This complex cocktail of emotions exploded within Malt, resulting in a lamenting wail of anguish.

• We learn of Jihl's story later into the game, and it's a cavalcade of tragedy in one way or another. Even the kids are too shocked for words.
  • Much like Nero, Blanck and Red centuries later, Jihl is a pseudo-hybrid engineered to serve as a living weapon. Unlike those two, Jihl was originally created to be a potential pilot for the Belenos. Once issues in hybrid production and the Belenos' testing resulted in the Belenos Project being frozen, Jihl was freed from being a guinea pig… just so he could become a living battery for the Soul Cannon itself. Not only did all this necessitate grueling and torturous experimentation just to create a being like him in the first place, it also meant he had to endure having his life force drained by the Soul Cannon repeatedly. To say nothing of being deprived of anything resembling a normal life due to the nature of his existence, and even the one person who was a positive influence in his life— the Female Engineer, who he called "Mama"— still allowed him to be subjected to it all, something he resents her for even centuries later. It's no wonder why he hates everything so much.
  • Compared to how Nero and Blanck were programmed from the start to be Baion's Blood Knight enforcers and thus were completely unreceptive towards Red's attempts to reason with them until the end, Jihl at the very least knows what love and affection are per how the Female Engineer cared for him as an individual— which thus makes his turn to evil all the more tragic.
  • As odd as it may sound out of context, it can be argued that Jihl's behavior is reminiscent of that of a bully (albeit with a fantastical twist), a title which Socks and Vanilla even refer to him as. He's demeaning towards the children from the moment they meet, and dehumanizes them as "beasts" that have no good use but to be used as shells for the Soul Cannon… because that's of course how he was treated by the scientists at Crusade: a sapient and fully cognizant being treated as little more than a glorified tool (or better yet, resource), with the abuse making him so detached from any personal humanity that he finds it surprising that he could even have dreams. While it (usually) isn't because of being subjected to human experimentation, many bullies in real life have been victims of abuse themselves.
  • Even more disturbing is the fact that Jihl isn't even the only child who was forced to go through all of that; he's just the only child who survived it. He makes it explicit that he knew the other hybrids on a personal enough level to consider them "friends", and had to experience many of them dying from experimentation, battle or any mix of the two. He even says that remembering all the pain they had to suffer through before death is a motivator for his angry rampage.
  • Even if his cocky personality may lead you to think otherwise, the truth becomes more and more clear as the game goes on— Jihl's crusade of revenge against the world is making him absolutely miserable, and is both figuratively and literally draining him of his heart and soul. As shown by this exchange once he and the Taranis crew stop fighting and finally talk:
    Jihl: You think the fight was good enough to settle the score?
    Malt: Good, bad… I couldn't say. I just know no good can come from hurting people or taking lives. None of us like fighting.
    Jihl: Hm… Y'know, I don't like fighting either. I guess something just snapped in me while the Soul Cannon fed on me over and over again…
    Malt: Jihl…
    • Takafumi Adachi's initial portrayal of Jihl in the Famitsu manga reflects this, having him drawn with a more depressed and solemn look on his face as opposed to a threatening one. It's easy to surmise that his smug attitude isn't more than just a coping mechanism.

• The kicker to the above? While the rest of Crusade subjected Jihl to experimentation and wasted their other hybrids like tissues, Jihl's "Mama" regretted everything she allowed him and the other hybrids to go through big time, as detailed in the secret recording she made wherein she confesses to all the atrocities committed for the sake of fighting the Vanargand. By the end of it she has tears rolling down her face as she professes her love for Jihl and the rest of his ilk, and how does she end it all? By allowing herself to be used to fire the Soul Cannon instead of Jihl, hiding him away within the Taranis in the hopes the he can at least have a chance at a better life in the future. Mirei Kumagai's acting for her definitely helps sell her grief, especially in the Japanese dub:
  Female Engineer: Don't worry about me, though. (voice begins to crack) I'll be sleeping eternally right here next to you in the Taranis. Jihl… I know neither you nor the children whose lives we took could ever— should ever forgive what we've done. (audibly begins crying) But believe me when I say… I loved you. I loved all of you, each and every one.
  • Losing a child is already a devastating experience for any parent to go through once in their lifetime. It's likely that there were upwards to dozens of hybrid children created by Crusade to use as test subjects for their experiments, all of whom the Female Engineer knew by name and cared for just like Jihl. It's astonishing that she didn't start her confession video as a sobbing mess.
  • Likewise, both the Female Engineer's video log and her final New Game Plus entry point to how she's aware that her gambit to sacrifice herself to the Soul Cannon may not work, but chooses to go through with it regardless, responding to the possibility of failure with "so be it", accepting that it may as well be karma. Note that the rest of the world was in utter shambles thanks to the endlessly-raging Titano-Machina, and that the Vanargand would be fully capable of carbonizing all of France with one lucky shot. It comes across as less like a mother dutifully giving her life for her child and more like a woman committing suicide due to carrying a mountain of unbearable guilt.
    • If Crusade's willingness to partake in horrific human experimentation wasn't a good enough indication of just how bleak life was during the Third World War, then the Female Engineer's despair and self-sacrifice surely is. It makes the eventual activation of the "Reset" command come off as even more of a Mercy Kill on the old humans.
  • Think back to the Golden Ending of the first game. It's shown via a Freeze-Frame Bonus that Jeanne detected Jihl sleeping somewhere in the Taranis… and only then did the Soul Cannon start charging up with energy, with her at first assuming that the tank was trying to use its own life force to power it. It seems the Female Engineer's intentions went awry in a way she didn't expect. The Famitsu manga, while non-canon to the main games, chose to make this detail explicit.
    • To rub salt into the wound, the second Crusade Archive reveals that the Female Engineer was Jeanne's original creator and the physical template for her appearance. The penultimate entry in the last game's Jeanne Archives had Jeanne affectionately refer to Jihl as her "counterpart", and express that she looked forward to meeting him again in the afterlife, "according to the human idea of life and death".
  • Once learning the truth, Jihl aims to atone for his actions by using the Belenos' powers to resurrect Hanna's AI self. When Hanna suggests that he revive the Female Engineer instead, he matter-of-factly informs her that any bio-data he could use to do that is long gone.

• The ending to Chapter 10, "The Interrupted Serenade", reveals that Vanilla's father Shayne has died long before the Taranis went berserk, in the freak car accident months ago. After the boss fight, Cayenne makes her a living bomb at the Exo-Taranis' engine room, which cripples the tank and leaves the remaining children helpless against the next major attack, killing them all if it wasn't for Maestro.
  • "Elegy of Winds" plays in this scene just like it did in Chapter 3, but unlike with Hanna, Vanilla will be gone forever if you failed to do what was needed to prevent her Plotline Death.
  • Even just before Cayenne reveals himself, Malt very appropriately chews out his "President Muscat" persona for faking his death and not telling anyone that he survived, while knowingly psychologically tormenting Vanilla as a result. And then Cayenne doubles down on said torment through revealing his true identity and the fact that he impersonated Vanilla's dead father for half a year after killing him and his wife. As the narration says:
    Vanilla held a hand up to her mouth to fight the sudden urge to vomit.
  • It gets worse if you remember how, midway through Chapter 7, Vanilla mentioned that she didn't have much family around following the death of her mother as well as the man she thought was Cayenne, combined with how Cannelle was already busy doing military work and seemingly too old to relate to Vanilla anyways. Her father seemingly dying in the Taranis' rampage at the start of the game made it even worse for her. And after being hopeful that her father is alive, Vanilla's hopes are dashed, she learns that her father is truly dead… and that one of the friends he and she trusted the most is the one that killed him.
  • In the Deep Depths outside of time, Malt's task is to uplift his friends and allies and motivate them to keep fighting (with any of the sacrificed children appearing as embers representing their souls). If you didn't meet the needed requirements (ensure Vanilla experiences six Link Events over the course of the game), Vanilla won't be affected by any of Malt's attempts to get through to her.
    Malt: If only I'd reached out to you more, listened to what was on your mind… Maybe it would have helped alleviate some of what you were going through.
    Vanilla: You can't put that on yourself. After all, I was never even really one of you all… I've always been on my own. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I've never really been the most social person. I'm… awkward. I should have made more of an effort to talk with you all, laugh with you all… I should have tried to be more vulnerable.
    Malt: Yeah, maybe so… But you're not alone in feeling that way.
    Vanilla: It's so simple when I think about it… Why am I realizing all this too late? Haha…
    Malt: It's never too late for—
    Vanilla: Sorry, I… just want to be alone for a little while.
    Malt: Vanilla… I'm sorry.
  • If you fail to save Vanilla from her Plotline Death at the end of Chapter 10, Malt will have break the bad news along with the revelation and identity of her murderer to her older sister Cannelle when she calls the Exo-Taranis. While the poor lady would already be left saddened and angry about the death of her parents regardless of if Vanilla survived or not, and the narration notes that she is venting out her frustrations breaking nearby stuff before she regains her composure, her response to hearing about Vanilla's death specifically is to begin screaming her name and outright burst into tears over it.

• The Normal Ending, named "But You Were Gone" in the Library. If Vanilla died and/or any child gets used for the Soul Cannon, Malt would hesitate at the most crucial moment after the Final Boss fight, refusing to use the Soul Cannon on the Belenos which is regenerating the resurrected Vanargand. Realizing that they were being used as Human Shields, Hanna and Jihl make the Belenos self-destruct, with Hanna lamenting that she never got to say her feelings while Jihl never got the race he wanted to settle the score with Malt. After the Belenos blows up, an enraged Malt throws himself into the Soul Cannon chamber and blasts the Vanargand, which finishes off Cayenne. The Gasco and Berman military present lament the deaths of the children and extend the ceasefire between Gasco and the Berman Empire. Some time later, the surviving children watch as the Exo-Taranis is thrown over the sea of clouds, all saying their respective goodbyes to the fallen, their resolutions of peace for the future, and their regrets of not achieving some of the things they desired.
  • Special mention goes to Mei's line as a normal end will always kill off Malt and Hanna, her closest family:
    Mei: Malt... Hanna... I-I won't cry anymore... I promise... starting tomorrow... W-Waaahhh... (proceeds to break down)
  • Even Count Nouvellune shows up to grieve from a distance:
    Count Nouvellune: Malt… This ending diverges considerably from the one I'd hoped for… I'm sorry… I had so hoped you would all be able to read the final chapter of my story…
  • Then there's the "Bad Ending" variation, referred to by the name "Heroes of Legend" in the Library. If Malt is the final child sacrificed and no children are left, the Gasco and Berman military lament the deaths of all the children, stating that they should have never undergone this ordeal at all. The final artwork is a distant shot of a group of unknown individuals standing in front of the Exo-Taranis before sending it off a cliff, possibly to give all the children a final tribute.
    Tales passed down through the generations of the brave children who fought to protect Gasco, and the people of the land swore an oath… To protect the peace those children had sacrificed everything for.

• Even the Golden Ending is sad for a few reasons:
  • While it's incredibly unlikely that players will sympathize with Cayenne after everything he's done (among other things) and it's hard to argue that he didn't deserve everything that came to him, his last words show that he at least remembered why he started his violent trek of vengeance:
    Cayenne: Selim… Marjolaine… I love…
    • Likewise, Merlot wishes he could've helped Shayne or Cayenne as their friend before things became hectic, blaming himself for putting the burden on the children. The Gasco Reports have shown that he knew the two personally for decades. It's likely that Merlot's carrying even more grief and regret than he lets on.
  • AI Hax's Heroic Sacrifice where he uses up the data of the Tarascus to fuel the Soul Cannon and end Cayenne… at the cost of his existence. And unlike how Jeanne's sendoff in the first game was rather brief with none of the children seen reacting to it, the children and the two old generals take a moment to honor him. As thoroughly evil and twisted as his basis was, it's still rather sad to see the AI go after all the good he did for the crew of the Exo-Taranis.
    Malt: I'll never forgive Hax for waging war on Gasco and invading our home… But the Hax we knew here in our tank was one of us. He was part of the crew. Thank you for everything, Hax…
  • Jihl chooses to sacrifice the last of his and the Belenos' energy to restore Hanna. While it's treated as his atonement for his previous actions, it doesn't make it hurt any less. The Female Engineer sealed him away so that he could one day have a chance at a better life— a chance at possibly even being a normal kid— and that chance is seemingly lost forever. As joyous as the children are about Hanna's return, they're still sad about Jihl's death and grateful for his sacrifice, especially Hanna herself.
    Vanilla: Jihl was just taken advantage of by Cayenne… He was a vulgar bully, but deep down, he was just a sad boy.
    Hanna: I think so, too… I never even got the chance to thank him. And now I never will…
  • Malt's final farewell to the Taranis, at least before its Unexplained Recovery in The Stinger:
    Malt: Taranis… You really are a force to be reckoned with. And you might not have any place in our world anymore… I think you've earned a chance to rest.

• Some days after Cayenne's defeat and the sacrifices of AI Hax and Jihl, all the children of the Taranis meet up in Petit Mona following an invitation from Malt. As Malt tells them, they're here for the purposes of running a race around the village— the race he and Jihl were meant to have after everything was said and done. All the children run with smiles on their faces, racing towards the horizon… and a vision of Jihl appears, running along with them. "Blessed are the children who inherit the future." Blessed they are, indeed…

---