Welcome to A LINE THROUGH T⌛ME, where I take the time to look through your favourite
franchises and work out how it all lines up.
Been a while since I discussed this shared universe timeline proper, eh? I'll be assuming
you've already seen the original episode on the DOA/Ninja Gaiden timeline, and then the
episode that confirmed Nioh to also be set in the same universe. Now that we're all caught
up, let's get to it.
There are a few details that need to be addressed before we can proceed with the newer releases.
First is a statement from the first video. In it, I said that I'd heard Tomonobu Itagaki
left Tecmo over accusations of sexual harassment. While those accusations were made, that was
in 2006, two years before he left. The actual reasons he left were alleged unpaid bonuses
and slanderous remarks made about him made by the company's president. It's possible
these two things have some connections, but I don't want to spread misinformation. The
allegations, of which he was found innocent in 2007, were not the reason he left. Now,
onto details from the canon.
Nintendogamemaster on DeviantArt commented that Ninja Gaiden Shadow says "3 years since
the last battle", seemingly suggesting it's a sequel to NES Gaiden 1, not a prequel. I
checked and I see where the confusion can arise. The first text in the game says, "U.S.A.
1985 A.D. It has been three years since the battle." What battle this refers to is unclear
due to the horrendous translation. The intro ends with the line, "Jaquio has not yet been
awakened." I think what it's trying to say is that Shadow is set three years away from
NES Gaiden 1, since that released in 1988 and Shadow released in 1991. The closing line
explains that this game happens before Jaquio awakens in NES Gaiden 1, supported by the
date of 1985, three years prior to 1988. Game translations back then where notoriously bad,
so the localisation team seem to have misread and misrepresented whatever the Japanese script
was saying. But no, this is definitely a prequel.
I missed one detail from Nioh 1 that connected the game to the DOA/NG timeline: Muramasa,
the shopkeeper from modern Gaiden and minor character in DOA4 and 5, appears in Nioh as
a blacksmith. Whether this is supposed to be his ancestor, or perhaps even the man himself
given how mysterious he is, it's hard to say. But, either way, the setup for the shared
universe was already in place before Bloodshed's End introduced Jin Hayabusa.
Nioh 2 has since expanded on the connections. The Darkness in the Capital expansion introduced
another Hayabusa ancestor in the Heian Period's Ren Hayabusa, and also brought in the Black
Spider Ninja Clan, including Tsuchigumo, a boss based on the Rasetsu from Modern Gaiden
II. And then, the final unlockable mission in the recently-released The First Samurai
expansion is a boss fight against the very Nyotengu that was introduced in DOA5 Ultimate.
It's impossible to deny that this is a shared universe consisting of three separate series
now. Well, I say three...
Another detail I overlooked in the past was in relation to the Ayane side story in Fatal
Frame: Maiden of Black Water. In the past, I concluded that the Ayane story was so disconnected
from the main story, featuring only the same location and enemy types, that it simply took
place in the DOA universe's version of Mt. Hikami. However, I again overlooked a small
detail: Tsumugi, the girl Ayane is sent to retrieve and who only appears in this chapter,
is referenced in the main game. During the Interlude between Chapters 3 and 4, Yuri can
find a photo of Tsumugi, commenting that Tsumugi's parents had hired Hisoka to search for her,
but then mysteriously called it off. This sets the stage for Ayane to set out to find
her instead. What this means is that Fatal Frame is actually a part of the Dead or Alive/Ninja
Gaiden/Nioh Team Ninja universe. That's right, incest ghost babies are now canon to Dead
or Alive. Fuck.
(I mean, yes, it could just be an Akuma in Tekken 7 situation, but shut up, this is more
fun.)
Before we get around to figuring out where these games fit in the timeline, let's discuss
the new releases that have come out since the previous episodes.
First, we have Dead or Alive 6. Naturally, it's set after DOA5, and we can probably say
it's post-FFV as well for now. But, what about DOAX3? Well, Jailbait and Honkers, both featured
prominently on the covers of all three versions of DOAX3, have not yet met by the time of
DOA6, and I struggle to accept that they never meet each other, or any of the other prominent
DOA girls they're unfamiliar with in DOA6, while vacationing on New Zack Island for two
full weeks. Especially given that Honoka is known to be a big fan of Kasumi, so she'd
definitely seek out the other fighters to get to know them. Yes, Warriors All-Stars
has the two reference the island, while Ayane says she's glad she and Honoka aren't sisters,
even though she learns they are in DOA6, but the story makes so much more sense if we ignore
the non-canon game by another studio and look at the canonical facts. Also, no one has aged
since 5, so it's set the same year. This game also seems to hold a key to the timeline,
which we'll get to later.
Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation was a nightmare to try and understand. Thanks to
contradictory information, it took me a long time to figure out if the game was a PC port
of X3 or its own thing, and if the latter, if it had its own story. From what I can tell,
despite reusing a lot of events and even some of the character endings, Venus Vacation is
its own separate story, taking place some time after X3. And this game also leaves off
half the DOA girls and instead fills its roster with shit tier OCs because the Japanese continue
to have shit taste.
Nioh 2, the only good and complete game Team Ninja's released since the last video, is
part prequel, part sequel, part simultaneously both to Nioh 1. The bulk of the narrative
takes place before the first game, spanning from 1555 to 1598.
Then, the first game takes place in 1600, its epilogue in 1603, Dragon of the North
in 1613, Defiant Honour in 1614, and Bloodshed's End in 1615. Why it takes William three years
to get back to England and then a further ten to rush back to Japan, I've no idea.
After this, Nioh 2's epilogue sees the new hero, Hide, team up with William in 1616.
William has a son with Okatsu by this point, who could only have been born after William
returned three years prior, but this is the boy now. The timeline only really makes sense
if you ignore Dragon of the North claiming to be set in 1613 and imagine William just
lived in Oshu for a decade, being visited by Okatsu a few years before the Toyotomi
uprising.
From here, Hide's story continues into three time travel adventures in the expansions.
The Tengu's Disciple sees them entering the Heian Period to fight alongside Minamoto no
Yoshitsune in 1185. Darkness in the Capital goes further back to explore some of the game's
backstory in 976. And the final expansion, The First Samurai, sees Hide teaming up with
their own yōkai mother and becoming the ideal for what a samurai is in 797.
The in-game timeline seems uncertain about the timeframe of the DLCs, but since Benkei
dies and Yoshitsune is implied to be on his way out in The Tengu's Disciple, it seems
that Hide is actually around until their deaths four years later. However, given that the
real Minamoto no Yorimitsu died in 1021, while the game version seems to die in 976, it's
difficult to say that Hide stuck around that long. It's likely that the game just truncates
events to suit its narrative purposes, which makes one wonder why the same wasn't done
with Nioh 1 to make William's trips across the ocean seem as urgent as they're intended.
After all, Taira no Kagekiyo dies shortly after Hide's arrival in 1185, and he didn't
die in real life until 1196.
Now, we need to place these expansions in the timeline, both with their original events
before Hide got involved, and the version of events where Hide is involved. Sadly, how
much time has passed between the epilogue and now for Hide is never specified; but at
least there's no notable time alteration, so we don't need to delve into dumb alternate
timeline bullshit, unless you want to headcanon that this creates a split timeline that leads
to either classic or modern Ninja Gaiden somehow.
Now, what was that key detail introduced in DOA6? Well, right at the start of the story,
Helena hands Jailbait a file on Honkers, which is dated October 5th 2018. This is actually
just filler text, because that page is the Koei-Tecmo America press release for the October
5th 2018 announcement of Bass, Tina and Mila being added to the DOA6 roster. They didn't
even remove reference to KTAmerica from the text. Hell, even Honoka's notes are copied
directly from the DOA5 Last Round website. Evidently, some Japanese member of the art
team just copy-pasted some English text into the texture file, which somewhat works for
the Honoka page, but not for the rest.
So, this raises the question: even if the text surrounding it is all filler, is the
date still valid? Potentially. But, the rest of the information on that page is suspect,
so it's difficult to say. But, even if we do accept it, all that changes from the previous
iteration is that everything moves two years into the future. The issue with either of
those is our newest addition to the timeline.
If you've seen the Fatal Frame episode, you'll know that Fatal Frame V is set in 2006. This
brings its placement between DOA5 and 6 into question, but also does the same for Ayane's
story being canon to the shared universe at all, since we estimate Ayane being 14 in either
2012 or 2014, making her either 8 or 6 when she goes after Tsumugi, and even with anime's
unrealistic proportions, she's definitely in her late teens, at least. Of course, it's
also possible that Ayane's chapter is set years later and Tsumugi's been trapped in
an unageing limbo state since, but Tsumugi's sister hired Ayane to find her, which you
imagine would have been relatively soon after the search was called off by her neglectful
parents. Additionally, ghosts of Mt. Hikami compel people to kill themselves, and I think
the mountain is exorcised by Yuri and Ren's actions in the main story, so Tsumugi and
the ghosts shouldn't still be around by then.
But, there is a way to make this work, and that's to go back on something I said in the
first video. I said that, based on the advancement of technology, it made more sense to assume
there was a sliding timescale and move everything into the future. However, if we undo that
and base our timeframe once more around one of the few definitive dates in the series,
the 1999 setting of the Ninja Gaiden arcade game, everything in the timeline falls back
ten years, moving DOA5-6 and FFV from 2016 to 2006. And now, it all lines up perfectly.
And no, we can't use the dates for NES Gaiden and Shadow, because that would move FFV so
far in the future as to place Ayane in her 30s there.
I admit, this could all be a case of confirmation bias on my part, and the existence of modern
smartphones in 2006 is unusual, but so are flying cars and Sky City Tokyo in, by previous
estimates, 2013. Some events in Fatal Frame still remain undated, which is a bit of a
pain, but that's a small price to pay for the satisfaction of seeing everything else
slide into place so cleanly.
Except... we hit one little snag after I'd already written and recorded this episode.
I discovered, thanks to Drake Vagabond, that Maria and Raidou's heartrate monitors in DOA6
also have dates that go up to 2018. So... it appears that that year is accurate. Fuck.
So, rather than rewriting the episode and then rerecording and re-editing what I had
so far, I decided to place this at the end, so you guys can takes the same journey of
disappointment that I did.
It does seem that the Ayane story really is just an Akuma in Tekken 7 situation; non-canon
to her home series, but definitely canon to the series she's guesting in. The timeframes
just don't line up at all, but Ayane's chapter is the resolution to a plot thread left hanging
in the main story, so it has to be canon to that game. Who knows, maybe this is the Ayane
from the Itagaki timeline, that was replaced by Dimensions. And then put back, because
the story recap on DOA6's website describes Genra's transformation into Omega as it was
in DOA3, pre-retcons. Suck it, Dimensions, you Twindel-tier fuck. The best we can probably
conclude is that Ayane's chapter is canon to DOA, just set much later, but that does
feel like a stretch. Unless, it is canon, and Fatal Frame is what's subject to a sliding
timescale? If we approach this that way, each story moves up around twelve years, placing
Fatal Frame IV in 1992, I in 1998, II and III in 2000, and V in 2018.
So, I'm left with a conundrum. Do we assume Fatal Frame's timeframe (ha-ha) has been retconned
to come later so it can coincide with DOA6's 2018 date, or do we assume that Fatal Frame
is a separate universe with a separate version of Ayane, similar to her appearances in Warriors
titles? Maybe the Itagaki DOAs, Warriors Orochi 3, Warriors All-Stars and Fatal Frame V all
feature Ayane from Earth-2. Let me know what you guys think in the comments.
Either way, I think it's fun to imagine the Spirit Stone Flashlight is powered by Nioh's
Spirit Stones, Amrita. No, Hide, stop, we need that flashlight!
If you liked this video, why not subscribe and support me on Patreon like these fine
people here? If not, then make sure to share it with your enemies so they can suffer along
with you.
Today's recommended video is Guardian Spirits in Dead Or Alive - Night Parade by Drake Vagabond,
partly because he helped me discover that DOA6 is set in 2018, and also because I want
to bully him into continuing The Night Parade series now that Nioh as a series is apparently
over.