Codename: Bakery Girl

A prelude to great things

Key art featuring Jefuty (left) and Noylu (right)

Codename: Bakery Girl is a remake of the previously discussed Girl of the Bakehouse. No longer a visual novel, it is now played as a top-down strategy game akin to a combination of Fire Emblem and XCOM. Characters move across a square tile board with each tile offering different terrain that can affect your stats such as accuracy, evasion, and movement in different ways. However, more than adding actual gameplay, Codename: Bakery Girl also drastically changes the story and the world that Girl of the Bakehouse was set in. This new gameplay and story effectively serve as the foundation for a much larger narrative, so I want to take this opportunity to examine that foundation and see the MICA Team universe got its start.

Similar to Girl of the Bakehouse, this game is also hard to come across (made even harder by the more recent and similarly named Reverse Collapse: Codename Bakery). But thankfully, Reddit had my back, so if you want to play this game, take a look at this post. Do not worry, I can personally vouch that all three download links are trustworthy.

Now, let's look at the gameplay and the strategy offerings in store. The bulk of combat hinges on the management of a resource called Action Points (AP). Each character has their own AP values, and almost everything you can do on your turn requires some amount of AP. The actions you can take boil down to three main options: moving, attacking, and using items. Although that sounds simple, there is a surprising amount of variety within the game's ten levels. Missions can largely be broken down into combat and stealth focused objectives, with later levels typically offering a combination of both in order to complete your objective. You could attack one garrison of troops before sneaking into the nearby forest to draw away and confuse the other enemies, or you could sneak your way into an enemy camp to set up an ambush. It’s a nice example of a system that’s simple to learn, but offers enough depth and variety to  last the whole game.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much variety when it comes to controllable characters. There are a few temporary characters you can use near the end of the game, but the only consistent (and upgradable) characters are Mendo and Jefuty, who each have a unique skill. But I found that the variety of missions and overall short playtime made up for this particular flaw. However, there is one rather annoying aspect, the inability to farm or backtrack in a game that offers collectibles and uses an exp system to level up its characters.

Now, this isn’t so bad from the outset, as the game is balanced such that backtracking wouldn’t be necessary at all to beat the game, and the collectibles are clearly labeled on the map making it easy to find them all in one playthrough without using a guide. But there is one wall in particular where this becomes important. Partway through the game, Mendo is offered a new gun that is overall a lot better than his previous one, and by this point you’ve figured out how to turn old guns into turrets. But, near the end of a game is a mission that practically requires you to use a silencer accessory that can only be equipped to the old gun. The game expects you  to simply switch to the previous gun, but if you didn’t know that you would need to hold onto it, it’s very possible you’ve already used that gun to make another turret, and there is no way to turn a turret back into a gun. This is the scenario I found myself in, where you either need the luck of god on your side to fight through a LOT of enemies, or start the whole game over again just so you could not do that one thing you did that the game gave no warning was a bad idea.

At the end of the day though, this wall and potential need for a reset is my only real complaint with the gameplay. Overall, it can seem rather barebones, but it serves as a very strong foundation that MICA Team would iterate upon and improve over the years. But with the gameplay out of the way, it’s time to talk about the story.

Before getting into the plot of the game proper, I would like to discuss the lore and world-building this game offers. As mentioned before, this game offers collectibles, and these come in the form of secret documents that exposit a lot of world history that explains in much greater detail some of the events we see. However, this lore almost reminds me of Middle Earth in some aspects, specifically that it’s made clear that the story we’re seeing is far from the only important story to happen in this world. Similar to how The Lord of the Rings takes place at the end of a very rich history, Codename Bakery Girl has a long history of its own that is explored primarily through its secret documents, so let's take a detour to see what that history looks like.

If you would like to know the full history of this world, including material introduced in Girls Frontline, The Art of Girls Frontline, Project Neural Cloud, and Reverse Collapse: Codename Bakery, then I shall direct you to The History of Girls Frontline (Warning, this is a very dense text, basically a novel all on its own). If you only want the material introduced in Codename: Bakery Girl, then you can read that here (use ctrl + f to skip to the “Confidential Files” section). If you would just like a quick summary, then keep reading the next eight paragraphs.

To introduce the lore in the same order the game introduces it, there exists a phenomenon known as “collapsing” and “reverse collapsing”. To understand collapsing, the game uses the metaphor of a molecule being made of atoms similar to a wall made of bricks. Collapsing is the act of breaking apart that wall and scattering the bricks, and reverse collapsing is reforming that wall, either the way it was before or with the bricks rearranged. By the time of the game, humanity has managed to recreate collapsing through the use of Collapse Fluid, a green substance that can collapse almost anything it touches, requiring very special care to contain.

The discovery of Collapse technology came about from the discovery of an ancient long-dead civilization that left behind Relic Technology. During the cold war, Russia managed to get its hands on Relic Technology early and begin studying it, before either the USA or Nato had a chance. However, this technology is also extremely dangerous, with a Relic going out of control resulting in the equivalent explosion of an atom bomb.

Despite these dangers, in 1992 the UN launched the GAVIRUL Reproduction Project. The goal of this project was to recreate the genome sequence of the members of the ancient civilization by splicing the few samples they had with human DNA and creating test tube babies. This resulted in the creation of Black Lily and White Rose, two humans who experienced accelerated growth, and above average strength and intelligence. Overall though, there wasn’t that much difference between them and normal humans, and they couldn’t activate the Relics, resulting in the project being declared a failure.

Several years after the end of the GAVIRUL Project, The First Beilan Island Incident occurred, where a failure to properly handle a relic site resulted in the release of a lot of collapse fluid and a lot of collapse particles, nearly resulting in the end of the world. “What are collapse particles?” you may be asking. Well, as it turns out, collapse fluid is almost radioactive, but instead of just outright killing you, it turns you into a zombie (called an ELID infected individual). As if we didn’t have enough of a story structure here with the “ancient civilization with advanced technology” trope we need to add in “zombie apocalypse” and “nuclear apocalypse” as well. However, the fallout of the Beilan Island Incident ends up spanning the entire globe as the winds carried clouds of collapse particles into densely populated cities and infecting everyone there.

Over time, the amount of habitable land left in the world shrank considerably, triggering WWIII (Our fourth “you could build a whole story around this” trope) as different nations began panicking and pointing fingers at one another to blame for this crisis. Eventually, tensions died down as the crisis grew worse and it became clear that war was not helping anyone. As a solution, the new ideal of Rossartrism gained popularity among the remaining nations resulting in the Union of Rossartrism Nations Coalition (URNC).

However, there was another major player all along in the Antarctic that had also survived the zombie apocalypse. During the research into relics, a group of scientists had discovered the largest Relic site in the world located beneath Antarctica. Thanks to smart people being safe, no disasters occurred, and the scientists there even found a way to resist low levels of collapse radiation. When WWIII broke out, the main city in the Antarctic (named Hollow City) declared neutrality and cut itself off from the rest of the world. During this time, they developed Reverse Collapse Technology and became fully self-sufficient before revealing itself and opening up communications again 50 years later.

For the next 10 years, things went well, and Hollow City had found a way to lower levels of radiation in certain areas, greatly helping the economy of both sides. However, these scientific advancements were seen as a threat by some in the URNC, and the differing ideological viewpoints of both sides began to create tension. Eventually, some fringe cities left the URNC and declared allegiance with Hollow City, forming the Antarctic Union (AU). This conflict eventually gave rise to the war we see in game (and the same war from Girl of the Bakehouse, but with a lot less Sci-fi).

In order to catch up with the AU, the URNC restarted the GAVIRUL Project, now called The Three Goddesses project, resulting in Jefuty, Noylu, and Lunasia. The lead scientist in this project is Professor William, who can be seen as the overarching antagonist for the whole series, since his actions are felt not just by the characters in Codename: Bakery Girl, but even more so in Girls Frontline as well. Like Black Lily and White Rose before them, these three had above average capabilities but didn’t show any signs of being able to activate Relic Technology, at least in Noylu and Lunasia’s case (who had come under URNC and AU control respectively). Jefuty however had disappeared, leading to both sides searching for her in hopes that she could be the one to activate the relics.

And this, after all that exposition, is where the game actually begins, with Mendo trying to find Jefuty and bring her to the AU. Remember when I compared the lore of this game to the lore of Lord of the Rings? I wasn’t exactly exaggerating. Everything I summarized is only the content introduced in Codename: Bakery Girl, I haven’t even touched on Girls Frontline (and I won’t in this article, don’t worry) but needless to say, there is a lot to unpack here. This lore goes well beyond anything seen in Girl of the Bakehouse, and is exactly the type of thing I mean when I call this game “a prelude to great things.” All of MICA Team’s works take place in the same universe at different times, with this game and so much of what it introduces acting as a cornerstone for even greater stories to come and even further expansions upon this already dense lore.

But, with so much said, what is the actual plot of Codename: Bakery Girl? How much of this lore actually comes into play? To answer the latter question, technically all of it comes into play either directly or indirectly, but the two most important things are the existence of ELID zombies and the Three Goddesses Project. So now, let’s look at this plot and see just how this story follows up on such an insane amount of lore.

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

The plot follows Mendo, an agent working for the AU who has been sent on Operation Bakery to try and recover Jefuty. Unfortunately, his team is ambushed and their leader Carl goes missing, but Mendo is able to find Jefuty and bring her to a nearby emergency communication outpost. After finding out that Beria, their informant, had betrayed them, Mendo and Jefuty secretly set out to get revenge.

After tracking Beria down, they see him talking with a strange man and girl. The girl senses Jefuty’s presence, forcing our protagonists to flee the scene into a forest infected with ELID zombies. But these are not your cookie cutter garden variety zombies, these are more akin to the bloaters seen in The Last of Us, hulking monstrosities whose flesh has mutated and grown in grotesque, monstrous ways. but they actually manage to escape with the help of the mysterious girl from before, who tells them that Beria’s base is largely unguarded in that moment before leaving.

Jefuty and Mendo head back to the absent where they meet Carl again, who thankfully survived the ambush and is planning to get some revenge of his own, but the empty base was, of course, a trap. At this time, Jefuty has a very important flashback, as it turns out that the mysterious girl was her sister Noylu (or Lige, as Jefuty calls her). Jefuty had attempted to free her sister from the clutches of the URNC by fleeing in a refugee transport vehicle, but the URNC tracked her and Noylu down anyway. While trying to escape, Noylu ran head first into a tank and was brutally killed, but with “father” William’s help, Noylu was brought back to life stronger than ever (zenkai boost ftw). Back in the present, Mendo, Jefuty, and Carl start making their escape after setting off some explosives but are confronted by Noylu, who resents Jefuty for abandoning her and asks Jefuty to return with her to “father” but Jefuty refuses.

After forcing Noylu to retreat, the final battle with Beria and his forces begins (centered around a bell tower similar to the one seen in Girl of the Bakehouse). At this point there are three endings that can occur. If you kill Beria, he taunts Jefuty with his last breath, causing Jefuty to leave in search of Noylu while shooting Mendo in the leg to prevent him from stopping her. In the neutral and good ending, which occurs if you kill Beria’s forces but leave him alive to talk, Beria claims that the war between the AU and the URNC is all because of her existence as an experiment, blaming all of those who’ve died on her. Jefuty resents this fact but is unable to deny it and asks if Mendo would be willing to kill her to put an end to the war. Mendo instead tells her to go, saying that “[her] power isn’t necessarily meant to cause suffering for others. Used in the right place, it might be a thing that makes others happy too” and encourages her to find her sister and live the normal life she desires. The good ending, which occurs if you also got every secret document, plays out the same except with the two sharing a kiss before leaving.

The ending is an unfortunate cliffhanger, but one that has a lot of potential for an overall happy ending. When taking a look at this story in conjunction with the lore and world it's set in, it kind of makes sense that this would end on a cliffhanger. So much of this world is in a near constant state of change and turmoil, and it feels like Codename: Bakery Girl is just a small chapter in a much grander narrative we have yet to see the ending of.

END OF SPOILERS

When you compare the plot of the game with the lore that builds up to it, it can seem very underwhelming. To be reductive, the plot can be described as “test tubes baby start war by existing” and it feels like such a story doesn’t have anything to do with Collapse Technology, ancient alien Relics, or the zombie apocalypse. While this could be seen as underwhelming, the thing to keep in mind (for me at least) is that so much of that lore is hidden. The main story itself is relatively self-contained, with the world building being a bonus for players who are willing to search for those collectibles, and that extra lore sets the foundation for more stories to be told by MICA Team in the future.

Comparing this back to The Lord of the Rings, Middle-Earth is in much the same boat where you can perfectly enjoy the main trilogy without needing to know everything that came before, but all the extra lore creates the potential for more stories to be told (either official, or fan-made). The world established in Codename: Bakery Girl is one ripe for telling many individual stories, things don’t always have to connect into a single grand conclusion that ties everything together. The types of stories that do that well can be amazing (just look at Avengers Infinity War and Avengers Endgame) but life isn’t like that. Humanity has around 5,000 years of written history with so many wars, technological advancements, and world changing events that it would be nigh impossible to know all of it. The world made by MICA Team ends up feeling just like that, an entire world, and Codename: Bakery Girl is just one part of that.

Should you play Codename: Bakery Girl? In all honesty, probably not. Don’t get me wrong, it is certainly a good game, but in the years since its release, the confidential files that determined so much of that lore have been reprinted and expanded upon in The Art of Girls Frontline, and the remake Reverse Collapse: Codename Bakery has honestly blown the plot and gameplay out of the water with how expanded and improved it is on nearly every level. In the end, Codename: Bakery Girl feels more like a historical relic, one that shows the beginnings of a world that goes well beyond the scope of what we saw in Girl of the Bakehouse. But if nothing else, I certainly enjoyed playing it, and you might too.