Clockwise from the top: Makoto Minazuki, Aki Nishino, Nanoha Wakakusa, Rain Kirishima, Chinatsu Nagisa, Sora Minazuki
"The story moves violently in the interstice of the memory."
Baldr Sky is a cyberpunkVisual Novel that takes place in a world where nanotechnology has advanced greatly and that the newer generation people have brain chips, making it easy for them to connect to the virtual space net. Baldr Sky is part of Team Baldrhead’s long running series (along with Baldr Force, Baldr Bullet and Baldr Fist). The visual novel contains elements of action gameplay with Kou piloting his simulacrum to fight. Unlike the majority of visual novels, every single character in the story is fully voiced.Kou Kadokura wakes up and finds himself in a cyberspace battlefield controlling a giant simulacrum. He faintly recalls going to sleep in his bed at the school dormitory, but now swarms of viruses are attacking him. He later realizes that he had just suffered a brain injury and lost his memories of the past few years. His subordinate Rain Kirishima informs him that he is a lieutenant in a mercenary group and that they were chasing after the Drexler Organization, a group believed to be responsible for the tragedy "Gray Christmas" that changed Kou’s life.The first game is named Baldr Sky: "Lost Memory" Dive1 and the second one is named Baldr Sky "Recordare" Dive2. The two games together form the complete story. If both games are installed at the same time, Dive2 will carry over saved data and also play the routes in Dive1. There is also a fandisk named Baldr Sky DiveX "Dream World", which contains several short side stories including the period that Kou spent training as a mercenary. The fandisk also includes different battle modes where you can use any mecha that appears in the story.
Artificial Intelligence: A major theme in the story with an AI faction and anti-AI faction having a conflict with each other.
Artificial Limbs: Chinatsu lost most of her body during Gray Christmas.
Attempted Rape: Gilberto and his group are guilty of trying to rape the heroine in several routes. It’s up to Kou to stop him before he succeeds.
When Rain was caught by Gilberto in her route, she was planning to kill herself but Kou persuades her to wait for her rescue.
Giberto’s group breaks into Noi’s clinic and was going to rape Nanoha, Makoto helps Kou in defeating Gilberto and Noi releases her killer robot on the group.
Aki was kidnapped by Gilberto so she tries mentally escaping into the virtual net as Gilberto hunts for her. Kou saves Aki in cyberspace and Mohawk saves her in the physical world.
Rain also experiences this right after Gray Christmas but she kills her assaulters.
After the End: Sora’s route takes place in a world where Neunzehn succeeds in wiping out humanity and the remaining people left are wired ghosts in cyberspace.
Babies Ever After: In Sora’s ending, World 1 to 5 ends with Kou and each heroine of that route at least going to have a child. World 4 specifically shows that Kou and Aki named the baby girl Sora.
Bittersweet Ending: Majority of the endings are this, even including the character’s "good" endings.
Rain’s ending has Kou unknowingly killing Nanoha in stopping Assembler from activating. In the "Ghost" ending, Kou spends the rest of his life in self-delusion.
Nanoha’s ending has Assembler being stopped but Chinatsu dying in an attempted kamikaze attack. In the "Dreamland" ending, Nanoha lost her body and the world war that has erupted has prevented Kou from finding a cloning facility to create a new body for Nanoha.
Chinatsu’s ending has Masa dying and Ark Project occurring in order to save everyone. In "Connected Machine" ending, Kou also lost most of his body.
Aki’s ending has Gungnir stopped but Chinatsu is at least mentally destroyed from being connected to Tranquilizer. Dominion’s plan failed and Makoto also dies from the fight with Kou. In "Ark" ending, Kou and Aki are living as wired ghosts.
Even Sora’s "Eternal" ending has humanity being revived through nanomachines but only a number of people who became wired ghosts (along with Kou and Sora) from Neunzehn’s destruction of the world can be saved. Over tens of thousands years has also passed since then so the world has changed by a lot.
Bizarrchitecture: Aki’s personal room in cyberspace is surreal with things such as melting clocks.
Brain Uploading: Ark Project is this. Neunzehn also uploaded himself in the Baldr system.
Brain in a Jar: In order to save Nanoha in "Dreamland" ending, only her brain was preserved in a metal box connected to a virtual reality world.
Broken Bird: Chinatsu became bitter after Gray Christmas, believing that Kurihara betrayed her and that the AI faction is hiding the truth from everyone.
Can't Live Without You: Kuu is connected to Sora and when Sora died, Kuu was supposed to disappear also. This confused Kou since Agent possesses the same ID signature as Kuu.
Father Gregory can transform his hands into chainsaws in cyberspace and his simulacrum carries this ability.
The "Iron-file" virus uses it.
Kou may use chainsaw as an attack if he has the weapon and limit break.
In DiveX, Chris also uses them.
Chekhov's Gunman: Kou’s NPC simulacrum was used to send a help signal against Dominion in Aki’s route. This NPC is also the main character in Sora’s route.
Chick Magnet: Kou. He already had six girls in love with him before the story begins.
Clothing Damage: Due to an incorrect setting, after Kou beats Rain and Chinatsu in a simulacrum fight, their clothes are almost completely destroyed. If Kou loses the battle, the same thing happens to him.
Aki was mistakenly thought to be a clone of Kou’s mother, thus straining her and Kou’s love relation. Aki even believes that the best method to get around this problem would be abandoning her body by following the Ark Project.
Noi has this hatred towards her father Neunzehn who illegally clone her by planting his genetic information into an ovum and caused her all kinds of suffering.
Kou in Sora’s route becomes depress when he realized he is a NPC, meaning that the real Kou can never be with Sora. He gets over it when he realizes that his existence is a linked with the every single Kou from different worlds and even has some of their memories.
Collapsing Lair: In DiveX, Chris invokes this when she is defeated.
Cuteness Proximity: Rain can’t stop herself when she sees the kittens in Aki’s cyberspace. When the others find her in this state, she quickly blames that she was under a mental attack from the I.C.E.
Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Not actually true but Chinatsu doesn’t consider herself to be human any longer and instead to be a zombie.
A Day at the Bizarro: The joke story in DiveX where Kou's and Sora's first meeting was a Crash into Hello in a high school comedy setting. Gregory is the school director, while Anan is a student and Isao's son. The cyberspace settings is replaced with a sentai parody with robot transformation.
Death by Origin Story: Sora’s death on Gray Christmas was what triggers Kou to become a mercenary.
Delayed Reaction: Sora had one when she first met Kuu. It took her a while to realize that Kuu has the same appearance as her.
In Aki's route, Kou also fails to recognize his own NPC simulacrum.
Deus Est Machina: A.I. Eve and the collective A.I. from multiple worlds, who consider Neunzehn’s actions through the multiverse to be a threat, so it create "Singularity" moments across different worlds to interfere with him. Kou’s NPC simulacrum in Sora’s route was recreated by the AIs for killing Neunzehn.
In the last route, Father Gregory’s simulacrum can make two doppelgangers in battle. Killing a fake will just cause him to resurrect it at full health.
Neunzehn also can create one in the final battle. The real one can also quickly turn invisible to heal himself so that the player might not realize that there is a fake.
Nanoha’s "Embrace" ending has Assembler activating and destroying humanity.
Chinatsu’s "Departure" ending has the world war occurring with Chinatsu reduced to a child mentality and Kou losing his body.
Aki’s "Nirvana" ending has Kou and Aki never meeting again, while Kou spends the rest of his life fighting against a mentally broken Chinatsu linked to Tranquilizer.
Makoto’s "Object Loss" ending has Kou dying followed by Assembler activating with people becoming wired ghosts. Makoto loses her memories of Kou’s existence.
Electronic Telepathy: Since all characters have a brain chip implanted in their body, they can communicate long distances without anyone listening to them.
Embarrassing Cover Up: Kou’s excuse to Nanoha about his investigation of an illegal NPC sex club is that he is a healthy man that has needs.
Evil Mentor: Kurihara is this to Kou as he was in charge of Assembler when Gray Christmas occurs and somehow was able to escape despite being in center of the incident. He was good all along but was being controlled by Neunzehn.
Evolving Attack: Attacking gives the specific weapon some EXP and that makes it better as it use less of the Overheating Meter. Use some weapons enough times also unlocks even better attacks to use.
Faking the Dead: Rain fakes Kou’s and her own death since the entire mercenary group they were part of was wiped out.
Flashback: A main part of the story is told in flashbacks. Since Kou is recovering his memories, he has random flashbacks of when he was still in school.
Fragile Flower: Nanoha tends to cry at every emotional moment.
Gamer Chick: Seira, who can micromanage hundreds of world civilizations at once.
Sora wears two bell-shaped decorations that hold up her twin pigtails. In her route, she replaces it with white ribbons.
Makoto has the hairband that appears to give her bunny ears.
Nanoha has a hair elastic band that gives her the side ponytail.
Aki also has a hairband.
Harder Than Hard:The game has a difficulty level going from Very Easy to Very Hard. This can simply be adjusted in the configuration menu between each battle.
In DiveX, there is the "Hell System" mode where the first 79 stages has a Rank Inflation that goes from F to SSS. Stage 80 has a difficulty rank of INFINITY.
Heroic BSOD: Kou suffered from one when he remembers Gray Christmas and that he saw Sora slowly being dissolved by Assembler.
He Who Must Not Be Seen: Neunzehn who is actually a being with multiple brains connected together into one and then mechanically enhanced.
Hold the Line: Several times in the story but especially in the mind hack moments where Kou has to prevent an invasion by a swarm of viruses from destroying several layers of protective gates.
Isao in Makoto’s route. Makoto just wants some information from him though.
Rain in Sora’s route. Rain believed that the Kou she was seeing was a trick by Father Gregory, so she planned on killing herself when she was defeated.
Kou and Sora in the "Eternal" ending. Sora was dying and Kou was going to disappear since the link he has with the other worlds' Kou ends when he kills Neunzehn. They decide to die together using a grenade. Kuu stops them both and they find another solution.
Rain blames herself for Sora’s death since she believes that Sora went to Isao to request for her school transfer. This caused Sora to be near Assembler when Gray Christmas occurs.
Aki feels responsible for connecting Kurihara to the Baldr system.
Makoto also blames herself for pulling a prank on Sora that delayed her from taking a train to leave the location of Assembler. She also feels responsible for not stopping Kurihara.
Joke Character: Since DiveX allows the player to use every single mecha that appears in the game, that includes all the weak viruses. The weakest joke mecha is that one Nanoha uses, which is really slow and two of the her three normal "attacks" involves her tripping on the ground.
Katanas Are Just Better: Kurihara dual wields it, both in this simulacrum and in real world. Kou also has a move where he uses iaido and in Dive X a force crash version of it.
Limit Break: All characters and bosses have multiple limit breaks. In Dive1, they can charge up one limit break bar. In Dive2, there are two bars so the characters can use two limit breaks consecutively. Kou has over a dozen of them.
Logic Bomb: Can prove to be fatal in cyberspace. Kou’s brain chip was damaged from one and that caused to him to suffer amnesia.
Lotus-Eater Machine: Dominion believes that the entire world is a fake and that they have to return back to the real world.
Love Potion: A virtual drug can be designed to have this effect. Kou has to use it to bypass security in the illegal sex NPC rooms.
The pendant Rain has is from Kou as an apology for breaking Rain’s gift pendant. In virtual space, the pendant acts as a self destruct mechanism.
The pendant Sora got from Kou was originally suppose to be Rain’s gift to Kou. The pendant appears in the hands of Agent and acts as a quantum dice that detects what world it she is in.
Multiple Endings: There are different endings depending on choices Kou makes, on time it takes for specific battle and the victory/defeat outcome of major boss fight. The titles of the good endings are the heroine’s name.
Rain has a good ending and "Ghost" ending that depends on the choice of whether Kou struggles to survive or gives up trying to escape.
Nanoha has a time specified battle when Kou has to rush to save Nanoha. Taking more than three minutes in the battle will lock out the good ending and lead to the "Dreamland" ending. Taking more than five minutes causes a Non-Standard Game Over. Finally, losing the final battle gives the "Embrace" ending.
Chinatsu has one divergence path choice that leads to "Departure" ending if Kou doesn’t believe in Agent’s actions. Choosing the other path leads to the good ending or "Connected Machine" ending depending of if Kou wins the last battle.
Aki has a good, "Ark" and "Nirvana" ending. Good ending occurs if Kou fights a time specific battle as fast as possible before GOAT prevents them from gathering information and an important choice of accepting Aki as she is. Otherwise it leads to the "Ark" ending. "Nirvana" ending occurs if Kou loses to Tranquilizer or Isao.
Makoto only has a good ending and "Object Lost" ending that depend on the final battle.
Sora only has one ending but she has an extended "Eternal" ending that shows more on the multiple worlds ending on a happier note.
The Multiverse: Neunzehn and Sora have been struggling against each other in influencing parallel worlds. Originally, all worlds where Kou survives Gray Christmas end with Assembler activating and killing humanity. So Sora tries to send instructions to a revived Kuu who takes the name of Agent to save Kou. Worlds 1 to 5 (the other heroines’ routes) are results of the battle. In Sora’s route, Kou becomes a being similar to Agent in sending messages to himself in other worlds to make a better ending.
Nanomachines: The technology is advanced enough to that it can accomplish things ranging from human cloning and slow body repairing.
Naughty Tentacles: Gilberto releases this on Rain and Kou has to rush through several battles to save her.
Neural Implanting: Having a brain chip in the human body allows characters to transfer documents and programs. There are even virtual drugs that simulate the effects of being drunk and being in love.
New Game Plus: Beating one route carries over all the weapons levels, force and plug-ins that the player acquired.
Older than They Look: None of the characters look any older than they did in the flashback of during the school days but the worst cases are Noi and Makoto.
Kou also qualifies as he personally takes down numerous viruses by himself in several battles.
One Game for the Price of Two: Dive1 contains the first three routes of the story, while Dive2 contains the last three. To be fair, Dive1 and Dive2 are very long and each takes more time to complete than a typical visual novel.
Our Souls Are Different: Humans have wired ghosts that separate them from NPC in cyberspace.
Overheating: Kou’s simulacrum can continue to use different weapons in a combo until his Overheat Meter is filled up. Then he has to wait for the meter to fall back to zero. Limit Breaks can go over the meter and there is one limit break that allows Kou to continue using weapons even pass the meter.
Paper-Thin Disguise: It is clearly obvious that Makoto is Dominion’s miko, but Kou doesn’t figure it out until her route when she is unmasked.
Kou’s father stopped visiting him after his mother died.
Rain thought that her mother was killed by her father Isao and their relation has been strained ever since. Isao was willing to let Rain die just to succeed in invading Ark.
Nanoha’s parents died from a car bomb.
Parental Incest: While Aki is not a clone of Kou’s mother, Kou slept with Aki believing that she was one.
Kou gave one to Rain (whom he thought was Sora) when she injured her leg after Gray Christmas. He couldn’t see so Rain used neurojack for him to look through her eyes.
In Rain’s good ending, their positions are reversed where Kou injured his legs and Rain used his eyes to see.
In DiveX, Kou gives one to Rain in World 7, after Rain was injured from Chris’ collapsing lair.
Playful Hacker: Rain is a great hacker, but Makoto is even better as she can easily break in any location due to her Electronic Brain Syndrome.
Kou and his NPC simulacrum have a link that that he used in Aki’s route when Dominion blocked his Electronic Telepathy. Kou made his NPC sent the distress signal instead.
In DiveX, it shows that Sora also has this link with Kuu when she can feel where Kuu exactly is.
After Gray Christmas, Kou suffers a head injury, causing him to be unable to use his eyes and ears. He mistook Rain for Sora when Rain used neurojack to help him.
In "Ghost" ending, Kou again believes that Rain is Sora and forgets about Rain’s existence. Rain goes along with this because she loves him so much that she just wants to be with him.
Retraux: Aki’s personal level in cyberspace resembles old 8-bit games.
Schrödinger's Butterfly: Mentioned a few times in the story. Several places in the virtual net resemble real life so much that some characters question if the their world is real. In Sora's Route, it took Kou a while to realize that he was trapped in cyberspace.
Kou has a limit break where he swings around a laser sword.
Split Personality: Kurihara and Makoto in Sora's route show signs of this but it they were really being controlled by Neunzehn.
Star-Crossed Lovers: Sora believes this is the relationship she has with Kou. In the worlds that Kou doesn’t die on Gray Christmas, she dies instead. She tried searching for a world where she and Kou are together, but did not find one. It’s not until World 7 and the Eternal ending that this becomes subverted.
Stealth Hi/Bye: Agent, who randomly appears and disappears in front of Kou.
Sexbot: The pirate NPCs that were illegally created from Kuu’s data. Therefore this annoys Kou since they look like Sora.
Taking the Bullet: In DiveX, Marcus who was mercenary in Kou’s group took the hit for Kou and died instead. This caused Kou to realize he was too soft in battle and he stopped showing mercy.
Talking To Themself: In Sora’s route, almost everyone thought Kou was talking to himself but he was actually talking to Kuu.
Time Stands Still: Occurs several times on the virtual net where every single AI freezes up.
Title Drop: "Baldr Sky" is the keyword that Kurihara used for the nanomachine capsule that he gave to Kou. When the keyword is stated, it provides data about the restoration program for the Assembler.
These Hands Have Killed: In DiveX, Kou was depressed since the first person he ever killed was a girl younger than him.
3/4 View: The gameplay part of the visual novel is from this perspective.
Timed Mission: Some missions have a hidden timer that might trigger a game over if the limit is passed. Taking too long on specific important battles will result in the normal ending instead of the good ending for Nanoha’s and Aki’s route.
Tomato in the Mirror: Kou in Sora’s route is actually the NPC that Aki created and doesn’t have a wired ghost. The real Kou died on Gray Christmas in that world.
Tomato Surprise: Sora was the brain unit that controls Neunzehn’s emotions and therefore in a sense, is Neunzehn. It is not possible to separate to her from Neunzehn since they merged completely.
Two Siblings In One: Sora and Kuu merged into one in "Eternal" end since Sora’s body could not be recovered from being part of Neunzehn..
Undercover As Lovers: Depending on route, Kou goes undercover with Rain, Chinatsu or Aki during the illegal NPC sex club to infiltrate without being noticed.
The Virus: Neunzehn transferred himself into Baldr system and people like Kurihara who link up with his data will become possessed by him and might transform into Father Gregory.
What Is This Thing You Call Love?: Neunzehn was created for controlling the economy and fighting wars. He logically could not comprehend feelings like love so he rejected the brain unit that governs it. He later regrets his action and wants to connect back to that brain.
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