Kawano: The themes at the time when development on the game started up were time travel and overcoming your destiny. Whether to believe that destiny is conferred upon you from the heavens, or whether you make your own path. Kawano: It has death at its forefront, but the real theme is is it really okay to live like this? If we pushed it too much to the front it'd become a serious-seeming game, so we had it as the background or hidden theme.
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The theme at its depth - I suppose you could call it philosophical - is about how to live as a person, isn't it? I'd like for people to think it over once they've finished the game. Kawano: It does feel a bit like is it really okay to be doing this? You're changing not just your own destiny, but other people's without even realising it, and I wanted people to struggle a bit with the idea of whether or not it's really okay. Travelling through time and changing your own fate feels sort of rebellious in a way, too. There were quite a few pretty tasty scenes in the big finale at the end that were dropped entirely. That, and if you stick too tightly to the rules you end up not being able to do situations you'd want to do because it'd be against the rules. In the end I just snuffed them out, saying this is an exception, so I don't think there's anything left that would be a bother.
Even still, you do get plenty of contradictions (laughs). Using this as the base, I then decided which rules to use for the game separately, and made it that way. First of all, I created a broad plot and tried not to stray too far from it.
Kawano: I struggled with that more than I initially thought I would. I think it would be easy for parallel worlds or contradictions to occur with the use of time travel, though. There also weren't many games that made use of time travel, so wanting to try it out led to this. Kawano: I thought it would be really interesting as a theme - or rather, I personally really like it. I also wanted to use the element of time travel, and to do a good job of blending the two, and started from there. I did take great care, however, not to make it too dark and cruel. I took an interest in what it would be like if you were to treat it a bit more seriously, and wondered if it would be possible to make a game with it as the main theme. Kawano: Death is so shocking, but there are a lot of games that treat it so trivially, with you just dying again and again. I think it's shocking that the game begins with the death of its protagonist, Eike. Source: Shadow of Memories Navigation File, page 80-86 Shadow of Memories: Junko Kawano Interview
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