Orion is the real protagonist

Orion is the game's real protagonist and it takes the Joker route to admit it. The four-suit routes are each the heroine negotiating a relationship she does not remember choosing; Orion is the only figure present in all of them, and he is the one the game cannot let you forget.

Ukyo's route recasts the premise. The loops are not narrative furniture; they are the thing being told. The game asks the heroine — and by extension the reader — what it means to keep waking up in the same life and making the same choices. The answer is not the romance.