Madoka Magica Portable Mami Route
Only If You Are By My Side(あなたが側にいてくれるなら)
Summary
This route is unlocked after finishing Madoka's route.
Mami, as an experienced magical girl, now enters into a witch's barrier alone. Even Kyubey is not by her side now. Although she is afraid, she has to deal with it. What happened to Mami? Why did she make a contract to become a magical girl?
Story
| Warning, this section contains spoilers. |
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Mami, as usual, is going to a witch's barrier alone today. She feels afraid and calls Kyubey, but Kyubey doesn't respond to her. She wants a partner to encourage her. After she goes deeper, Kyubey comes and explains that he is doing something more important. In the center of the barrier, Charlotte is there. Mami finishes her quickly, but as in anime, she didn't notice there is another form. While Mami is in danger, a flashback to her past is revealed. Several years ago, Mami was a normal student with parents and friends. Teachers tell Mami and her classmates to be careful because there are more and more suicides and criminal activities for unknown reasons. One day, as shown in the anime, she was with her parents in their car when they had an accident. Her parents were killed and Mami severely injured, perhaps fatally. Kyubey appears and forms a contract with Mami, who wishes to be saved. Thus, Mami becomes a magical girl. After the accident, and caught up with hunting witches, Mami becomes distant from her friends at school and ends up alone. She has difficulties initially with fighting, starting out with only a ribbon attack. Mami defeats Gisela's familiars and gains some confidence as a magical girl. But when she fights Gisela, she feels helpless because the witch is too strong for her. Even worse, Gisela ate a child, and Mami could do nothing about it. After this, Mami made up her mind to study even powerful attacks and learned to use rifles with powerful attacks such as Tiro Finale. There is now a time skip to several months before the current time. In it, Mami enters Gertrud's barrier, where she encounters Madoka. She saves Madoka, and tells her about magical girls. The flashback ends to the current time, with Mami facing Charlotte, thinking she's about to die. But then an arrow attack from Madoka, who is now a magical girl, saves Mami. The two of them work to defeat Charlotte, and form a combination. Mami teaches Madoka how to be a magical girl. Mami feels very happy now that she has Madoka and is no longer alone. One day, Homura Akemi with braids and glasses transfers into Madoka's class, just like the start of episode 10 from the anime. Events play out like the anime of Homura's first day, although new scenes show how kindly Madoka treats her. When Homura gets caught in Izabel's barrier, Mami and Madoka are there to rescue her. After this, they go to Mami's apartment to talk. Meanwhile, Sayaka feels Madoka absence, as Madoka spends more time with Mami and Homura. So Sayaka talks to Hitomi more. One day she visits Kyousuke and catches Kyubey's eye. However, she doesn't contract throughout the route. At the same time, Kyoko returns to Mitakihara to see Mami. But since Kyoko is not straightforward, Mami sees her actions as suspicious and they end up arguing. After being saved by Madoka and Mami, Homura comes to admire Madoka even more and becomes friends with her. Homura, encouraged in part by Kyubey, begins to think about becoming a magical girl, but feels she wouldn't be good at it. Mami is happy, but also finds herself depending on Madoka more and more. When she sees how close Madoka is becoming with Homura, Mami begins to feel jealous. One day, Mami finds Kyoko hiding in a grove. She criticizes Kyoko for acting more and more selfishly. Kyoko replies that she heard Mami has formed a new magical girl combination. She wants to meet that newbie magical girl. Mami thinks Kyoko might hurt Madoka, so she refuses and warns Kyoko not to come near them. Kyoko then returns home to Kasamino, regretting why she could not have been more straightforward with Mami. One evening, when Mami knows Madoka is with Homura, she decides to go alone to a park she hasn't visited in a long time. She finds a woman committing suicide. It's the mother of the boy that Mami had failed to save, who ended up eaten by Gisela. Mami makes her unconscious and finds Gisela's barrier. There are two possible endings, depending on whether Mami's soulgem is completely tainted or not. 1. Mami does not become a witch. Madoka and Homura come to help. Mami has Homura take care of the woman who nearly committed suicide. She then fights Gisela with Madoka. In her barrier, Madoka and Mami have a talk where Madoka eases Mami's insecurities. They defeat Gisela. Afterwards, they fight Walpurgis. Like in the anime, Mami dies then Madoka tells Homura she's happy to have saved Homura, before Madoka also dies in the fight. Homura makes a contract with the same wish as the anime, in order to save Madoka. She becomes a magical girl and resets time. 2. Mami becomes a witch. Mami decides to fight by herself. But since her soul gem is completely dark she cannot use any magic and defeats Gisela with only her melee ribbon attack, like when she first started fighting. After Gisela is defeated, Mami recalls that if she dies in a witch's barrier, her body won't ever be found, and nobody will know that she died. When Madoka and Homura finally arrive, they see Mami fall into despair and become Candeloro. Madoka calls out to Mami, to try and change her back, but is unsuccessful. When Candeloro begins to attack Homura, Madoka has to defeat her. After this, Kyubey explains the truth to them about about magical girls and witches. Madoka says that she doesn't want to see Kyubey any longer. When Walpurgis comes, Madoka fights against her alone and is killed. Homura, despite knowing the truth about magical girls, still makes the same wish to have another meeting with Madoka again. She becomes a magical girl and resets time. |
Observations and Trivia
- This route seems to correlate with the first timeline of Episode 10 of the anime, if Mami stays a magical girl, and incorporates events from the Drama CD "Memories of You" and references Mami and Kyoko's past in the Drama CD "Farewell Story."
- On Day 19, as long as it's after Madoka enters Gisela's barrier with Mami, it's possible to clean Mami's soul gem, even if it goes completely dark.
Speculations
Strategy
- In Mami's flashback, try to level Mami up as much as possible, as the higher the level she is, the more stat points she'll get when the flashback is completed, e.g. Lv 6 gets 5 pts., Lv. 5 gets 4pts. etc. Since there's a limited number of mobs to fight, one way to get a higher level is to ignore Gisela in the boss fight and kill adds instead, as the encounter ends when Gisela is at 70% health or Mami's HP is at zero. You can extend the fight by avoiding damaging attacks by Gisela and using healing potions when needed. Depending on which end you want to pursue, you may decide to use the stat points on Mami or keep them and transfer them later to Madoka instead.
- Izabel can be a difficult fight, particularly if Mami's emotion value is high, making her soul gem go dark quickly. While not easy, Madoka can be used to primarily fight familiars and Izabel, particularly if she received many stat points. Mami can be used in reserve when Madoka's health becomes low or to use Tiro Finale against Izabel. Be sure not to use this or any other attack when Izabel has her reflective barrier up.
- Candeloro is an easy fight as neither she nor her familiars do much damage. Madoka can chose to ignore the familiars and focus her range attacks to Candeloro to quickly defeat her. Sometimes Candeloro will disguise herself as one of her familiars, but she can be identified by the use of a fireball attack, which looks and sounds different from the Madoka familiar's bow and arrow or Kyoko familiar's spear attack.
- Players can see their first encounter with Walpurgis on this route. It is not necessary for Mami and Madoka to defeat her, as the route's cutscene end will happen, as long as they get to the final level with Walpurgis.
