I did my best, I fumbled, and the sight of Ember using her last breath to apologise for goofing off so much when she could've been training more is going to haunt me forever. 10/10 would make a wish and start again
Edit: I did it. I saved her. The music shift is everything, I am screaming, thank you.
Upon further consideration, because I cannot dislodge this game from my brain, I realised something amazing - Ember's route actually fits canon. I know it's an alternate universe but hear me out.
You remember Ember's Last Signal outfit debut, right? The amnesia, the Kindlings being a tech who worked on her project, she had 'amnesia' (only for that stream), we bonded, she crashed her mech, she said 'maybe in another timeline...', we howled and cried and prayed for this to not be the end?
That actually works as a starting point for entering the loop of Raise-a-Wish. Because there had to be a 'first' loop at some point, right? We go back in time, we accelerate her development, she shows the clearest signs of remembering other timelines out of the girls (unlike Lumi, who figures it out by pure logic), she yearns for her squad just like she did on her failed mission, she challenges the Creature before it can destroy the planet and ascend to the stars to be a universal threat... eventually she gets a winning cycle, the rest of the Invaders get created, and you all get to settle down and become streamers peacefully. Which totally explains why Ember went from 'I may not remember you but I'm glad you were the one to find me... goodbye' to 'Hi, regulars who I know by name! ...Mech crash? Amnesia? What are you talking about, of course I know who you are!' over a couple of real-world days - because this is Raise-a-Wish Ember grown up.
It's literally not canon. You've said that. But all the same, I like to think that that doomed Ember Amane lives on in her Raise-a-Wish self's unusually clear cross-timeline memories, and eventually got to save the world, meet her squadmates, and settle down into peacetime after all. Thank you for letting us save her.
(oh god wtf am I doing with my life, I'm typing fanfic of fanfic into an itch.io comments section)
(regardless of whether it was intentional or not, you've smoothed over a plot hole in Ember's outfit debut, and also you reached me this hard with the game, please never stop cooking)
