Those who play visual novels with romantic elements might notice that a theme can sometimes appear. To help people better slip into the role of the lead character, their avatar can… well, sometimes have anywhere from a one-dimensional personality to none at all. To help people better self insert, faces can be obscured or have no features, names can be changed, and there could be no voice acting or an option to turn it off. Code: Realize isn’t that sort of series. Cardia has an actual identity, and it is because of it that Code: Realize ~Future Blessings~ matters so much.
Editor’s Note: While there will be major Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth spoilers below, there will be little to no Code: Realize ~Future Blessings~ spoilers.
As a basic update and reminder, Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ introduces Cardia, an unusual woman who only has an unusual stone embedded in her chest, memories of only about the last two years of her life, is living alone in a mansion while waiting for her father to return, and constantly thinks of herself as a monster due to a corrosive, acidic touch that can burn through anyone and almost anything and… her father telling her she’s a monster. The legendary thief Lupin helps her escape that life and brings her to London, where she meets and lives with a vampire named Impey, a scientist named Frankenstein, a vampire hunter named Van Helsing, and the mysterious Count Saint-Germain. While there, everyone learns she possesses no heart, doesn’t need to eat, has extraordinary strength, and doesn’t know anything about socializing with people and the outside world.
This means a big part of the original Code: Realize game involves Cardia herself growing as a person. She goes from someone with little to no emotional response, all because she has no experience with them. She doesn’t know how to behave around people. She has no self-esteem. Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ is about seeing her progress into a healthier individual. As we go through the game, we see basically learn to not only love one of the bachelors, but herself.
Code: Realize ~Future Blessings~ is essentially a necessary “what’s next” and “what could have been.” Both are important not only because it gives fans of the series more romantic moments, but due to how it helps enhance Cardia’s character further. The epilogues for the five original bachelors are all about how relationships change and evolve after she becomes the less deadly and more emotionally aware person. Lupin’s picks up after a wedding and shows how the two would relate to each other when they have the freedom to be together safely. Routes where her poisonous touch is still a potential issue explore the consequences, while others wonder how people who both aren’t accustomed to relationships will relate to each other. How she reacts in each one is equally engrossing is how lovey-dovey things can be.
It also helps so much with better developing her backstory and familial relationships. The biggest spoiler in the game is that Cardia and Finis are both artificial beings created by Isaac Beckford for his own means, based upon his children. Cardia herself is the 666th one and designed to purify the horologium and make it into the Philosopher’s Stone. We have hints and ideas of what his life must be like in Twilight, as well as what things might be like for him. In addition to fleshing out him, Code: Realize ~Future Blessings~ better explains Cardia. By giving her this chance at family, we see how she would handle having someone who understands almost exactly what she is dealing with and how their development could alter their own demeanors and lives. We see her and him grow further.
Cardia being unique is part of what makes Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ so good. Code: Realize ~Future Blessings~ is a chance to take that one step further. Yes, it is about further exploring established romantic relationships with characters people grew to love. It absolutely elaborates on people who didn’t get as much attention the first time around. But it also spends more time with Cardia and how she’s changing as a person as a result of the events of the first game.
Code: Realize ~Future Blessings~ is available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation 4.
