Sampaguita



""Will you love me forever?""

- Tagline in the trailers of the game, said by the main heroine, Maria

Sampaguita (サンパギータ) is the third entry in the interactive anime Visual Novel series Yarudora, produced by Sony Computer Entertainment, and developped by Sugar&Rockets and Production I.G. The game was initially released in 1998 on Playstation 1, then re-released in 2005 on Play Station Portable.

Autumn, in Tokyo. In the middle of a rainy night, the main protagonist (i.e. the character controlled by the player), an Ordinary University Student, comes out of a mixer party organised by his fellow comrades of his part-time job. The train and bus services are long over, and there's no taxi around: he has no choice but to walk his way home, bemoaning on how his friends manage to get girls so easily while he doesn't.

Suddenly, a police car comes his way. Thinking about it, there were an awful lot of them moving around the station... The policemen in the car ask the protagonist if he has seen a South Asian-type individual nearby, to which he answers he didn't. The policemen let him go while asking him to call them in case. A few minutes later, in a dark backstreet, the protagonist has a chance meeting with a girl. She clearly is South Asia-typed, has a wound at the forehead, she's limping, and has lost her memories: the only thing she remembers is her name, "Maria Santos". Touched by her plight, the protagonist carries her back to his home.

Once there, they examine the girl's belongings. Inside her bag, they find two photos; a wad of cash; a make-up set; a cassette tape... and, to their surprise, a small, but real handgun. Maria being cleary in shock and tired, the protagonist puts her to bed. The following morning, the protagonist goes to his work, assuming that Maria would have slipped away when he would come back in the afternoon. Instead, he finds his flat cleaned-up and Maria still there. "I have nowhere else to go..."

And thus begins the protagonist and Maria's cohabitation, as they go on a quest for her identity. As time passes, their relationship blossoms into romance. But their love will soon be put to test, as a mysterious man from the Philippines will appear, and the Yakuza, the Triad, and the Japanese police will come after Maria, and not for good intentions...

The "Autumn" title of the four original Playstation 1 Yarudora games, Sampaguita was directed by Mizuho Nishikubo (Ghost in the Shell movie, The Mysterious Cities of Gold, Patlabor 2 The Movie), and the character design is courtesy of Shirow Masamune (Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed) and Takayuki Goto (Blue Seed, Please Save My Earth OAV).

'''BEWARE, this game is very story-driven. DO NOT HIGHLIGHT THE MARKED SPOILERS BELOW if you want to keep the full experience of the game. You Have Been Warned.'''

This game presents the following tropes:
"Old Man: In Japan, you'll meet a man who will be of the upmost, precious significance to you. Whether you'll become happy or not, will depend on his actions."
 * Action Survivor: The protagonist, when going in  route. He's really out of place in the middle of the climax's Storming the Castle event, being an Ordinary University Student with no firearms or fighting skills, and awfully scared. It's only   that drives him forward.
 * Adventure Game
 * Badass: Boy qualifies for it big time.
 * Big No: Maria, if following the  route, when.
 * (Beautiful) Brown Eyes: Maria's distinctive physical trait, as the game's cover above testifies.
 * Canon Name: While the game lets you name your protagonist, in the Drama CD, the player protagonist is named "Ryousuke Tsugihara". This is a trope of note, as the Drama CD's story follows the  End   route:.
 * Conspicuous CG:
 * The buildings in the background, during the sequence where a car is running on a highway (said sequence is the very first scene in the game's 1st opening).
 * The airplanes in the very last scene of Good End 2.
 * Cutting Off the Branches: While the game has many Endings, its official derivative works went with specific Endings for their respective canon:
 * The Collectible Card Collection went with Good End 2 as the main storyline, while Good End 3, Normal End 2, Bad End 1, and Bad End 9 became Parallel Stories;
 * The Drama CD went with.
 * : In the epilogue of the Drama CD, Maria gave.
 * Dramatic Gun Cock: One of the Triad members does this at the game's climax. The scene where he cocks his shotgun is also viewable in the game's 1st opening, without the cocking sound however.
 * Ending Tropes:
 * Bittersweet Ending:
 * Happy Ending:.
 * Fire-Forged Friends: The main protagonist and  eventually become this,.
 * Flower Motif: The sampaguita, or Jasminum Sambac. Not only it symbolizes Maria, a delicate, exotic flower lost in the middle of an unknown country, but it also symbolizes the relationship between her and the main protagonist, as it has a meaning of "a promise of eternal love between two people".
 * Gamer Chick: Maria, who's really good at arcade games.
 * Gory Discretion Shot: Played straight for the heroic characters: neither the protagonist nor  get graphic representations of their deaths in Bad Endings, the camera focusing on their killers' faces instead. Averted for the Big Bad characters though, who are killed with graphic shots to the head or blade slashes.
 * : Maria becomes one in  End.
 * Identity Amnesia / Quest for Identity: Just like in the other Yarudora games, this is the driving force of the game, as not only the protagonist and Maria are searching for her memories, but the bad guys are also after her for said memories.
 * Knight Templar Big Brother: They may not be blood siblings, but Boy considers Maria as his little sister, and is very protective of her.  He's extremely hostile to the protagonist and the relationship he has with Maria  ;.
 * Leaning on the Fourth Wall: If Maria recovers her memories, she'll tell to the protagonist that, the day before she went to Japan, the old man who taught her Japanese told her fortune, and said the following (which the player will see and hear firsthand via Flash Back sequence):
 * Identity Amnesia / Quest for Identity: Just like in the other Yarudora games, this is the driving force of the game, as not only the protagonist and Maria are searching for her memories, but the bad guys are also after her for said memories.
 * Knight Templar Big Brother: They may not be blood siblings, but Boy considers Maria as his little sister, and is very protective of her.  He's extremely hostile to the protagonist and the relationship he has with Maria  ;.
 * Leaning on the Fourth Wall: If Maria recovers her memories, she'll tell to the protagonist that, the day before she went to Japan, the old man who taught her Japanese told her fortune, and said the following (which the player will see and hear firsthand via Flash Back sequence):

"Protagonist: "There's something I understood. , you don't fly in the sky like in mangas. Things like gravity and the law of inertia are still in full effect. When you have to travel to a faraway place, you still have to use means of transport after all. That said, nobody will be angry at you even if you don't buy a ticket...""
 * Multinational Team:
 * Neck Snap:  does a graphic one to a Mook at the beginning of the Storming the Castle event.
 * : Discussed by the protagonist :
 * Regarding Flight:

"Protagonist: ", something that's inconvenient, is that you can't talk with ordinary people. But, if you enter in those people's dreams...""
 * Regarding Dreamwalking:

"Protagonist : In my happiness, something surprised me. What everyone were saying... I could understand all of it! I don't know why, but I could understand !! Is that because  ? If that's the case, then   is not that bad of a thing."
 * Regarding communication:


 * Photoshop Filter of Evil:
 * The game's cover above, although it's done to symbolize the mystery behind Maria and her memories, as she's not evil.
 * During the game, happens the instant.
 * Pinky Swear: In the Drama CD, the protagonist, Ryousuke, introduce Maria to this Japanese custom (who takes the "if you break your promise you'll eat a thousand needles" bit literally and panics, telling Ryousuke would die if he does that), and makes a promise with her to go to a Japanese festival the next week.
 * Shrinking Violet: Maria suffers a chronic case of this, ever since her childhood days. Because of her shy nature, she hardly was able to make friends; when she was in the Philippines, it's only via Boy, who went and befriended her, that she could make some friends.
 * Storming the Castle: The event that gives the "Action" label to the game, as well as the warnings of graphic violence on the game's box. At the game's climax,.
 * Stuff Blowing Up: During the Storming the Castle sequence.
 * The Triads and the Tongs: One of the antagonist factions after Maria.
 * Upper Class Twit: Hikaru Sato is a prime example of this trope. Being born and raised in a very rich family, "A human being's value is decided upon his wealth, his power, and his beauty" is his motto, and he's such an unsufferable Jerkass the protagonist is the only person who can (barely) stand him.
 * Visual Novel
 * We Have to Get the Bullet Out:  does it to himself  . With a knife, lots of cotton, a bottle of disinfectant, and bandages. And he manages to be healthy enough two days later to kick some major   ass during the Storming the Castle event.
 * Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Maria abhors cockroackes.
 * Yakuza: One of the antagonist factions after Maria. And they're not above hitting a girl, much less killing those who stand in their way -including the protagonist.