I have not been in the mood to write about video games lately mainly because of how fucked up things are but oh well, what else is there to do these days? Go outside? Ya right.
So here we go, Sampaguita, the fall-themed 3rd entry in the Yarudora series. Once again, you play a random dude that happens to meet a girl that lost her memories for some reason or other. This time, it's a brown immigrant from the Philippines and thankfully in this fictional world, she doesn't get brutally beaten or killed for no reason by the police. (Did I mention I'm not in a great mood?)
You see any south east Asians... or any other suspicious colors...?
Overall, I think the Yarudora games are one of the more higher quality interactive anime series out there and this one is no exception. One big departure is that the male lead is voiced as well though you can turn it off if you're one of these weirdos that don't feel "immersed" when a character is voiced by well... obviously not you.
Damn accurate depiction of the real you, no I mean you, not me
Another interesting change was the addition of hints after you reached a bad ending that will successfully lead you to at least the first of the good endings. It won't help you reach all the other endings though cause it wouldn't be much of game at that point, now would it?
Based on a few Japanese reviews, this 3rd entry seemed to be viewed more favorably in the series due to the hard boiled story or whatever. Personally, I preferred the previous game's emotional drama even if it was more "galge". Maria's voice acting was very well done considering it was a Japanese person acting as a Filipino with supposedly 6 months of Japanese lessons.
Realistically, she should be like, "What the fuck you saying now?" half the time
Overall, I personally thought the story was not that super interesting. Well, I think the endings were pretty good, but the main events were nothing unexpected. I like the character design. I think someone from Ghost in the Shell was involved (dunno the details).
The story routes seemed a lot simpler this time around, most of the choices leading to the same overall plot with minor variations or just a bad end. It didn't have those side "what if" paths like Double Cast nor the complicated piecing together various events to figure out the truth in Kisetsu wo Dakishimete. Oh well, that just means I can move onto the next game even sooner!
Hey, are you going to buy me that animal crossing?
Score: 3 sitting here depressed that 40% of American STILL approve of Trump out of 5 (7 hours played, all endings)
As usual for this series, the music was pretty good but I don't think I'll be holding onto my PS1 copy of this game. I need to make room in my closet for that tiny Game Gear! (not)
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
This is gonna be a short post because I really don't have much to say about Atelier Elie. It's pretty much the same game as the previous entry except you are Elie (duh).
The little drama CD included with the game gives a bit of background on her story but Japanese only (sorry non-Jhipsters). This game, like the rest of the Salburg series has never been localized so this game gets the obligatory +0.5 Jhipster smug points.
Wow, this is SO interesting. Too bad it's Japanese only... Aww...
So Elie is a direct sequel on the same console with the same graphics, locations, and recurring characters. Yes, you get to give the weapon shop owner some hair growth tonic again. The only noteworthy addition to the gameplay are the new "blend" and "original" crafting methods. Finally, you can mix and match as you like for infinite possibilities! You want to use 2 nyuzu? How about 2.1 nyuzu? Or even 2.2? You might improve the quality from B to B+ and get a better reputation! Ugh, fuck that, google time.
You used 2.8 green neutralizers instead of 2.9?? You fool!!!
I will admit that I may have graded the first game a bit harshly as we "pro" reviewers tend to do with a game that doesn't hand-hold you with baby gamer tutorials. Now that I have a better understanding of how these games work, I do admit that it gets addictive trying to scrounge up the ingredients without getting killed, scraping up some cash to buy the rest of your equipment and reference books, and managing your fairy slaves ahem "helpers". But saying this game is fun is akin to saying, "Wow, I feel so much better after I tidied up my room!" I mean, who the fuck wants to "play" a game that basically consists of real work and trying to eke out a living to pay off your expenses? Oh...
Look at that tanuki's smug face as he exploits the working class...
Score: 2.5 At least Elie's character design matches today's social standards of ambiguous gender traits! out of 5
I mean the game is fun and all but only in small doses and in my case, several months of breaks in between. I also foolishly agreed to become Meister Rank which extends the game for another 2 years. Elie went back to her village in my ending and I have no desire to play again even though I missed out on recruiting Marie from the first game. I also made gold but the game didn't seem to care.
One of the many events I missed, oh well
In general, without following a guide, I feel like I probably missed out on a whole bunch of events just like the first game. I even almost missed the fact that you could take a carriage to another city because I didn't keep speaking to random people in the town at random times. Oh well, whatever, I'm over it. Ok, time to play Atelier Lilie!
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
You may have noticed there are a lot of these interactive movie games on this blog lately. As usual, I need to make room to further drown myself in the delirious pleasure of shameless consumerism (aka hoarding). Err, excuse me, I mean, "engage in my personally enriching hobby of video game collecting".
What's the point of buying more games when you have a giant pile?
When are you going to have time to actually play all those games?
Don't you think there's better things to spend your money on? ▼
Murder on the Eurasia Express beats the record for being the shortest of the bunch so far, clocking in at only about 2 to 3 hours. Unlike the anime games I've been playing recently, this is FMV with OMG, real people!!
Wow, the hair rendering looks so realistic!
Even though there were a lot of cheesy FMV games with the advent of the CD-ROM, I still enjoyed them back in the day. Just being able to hear "real" music instead of sound chips and midi was mind blowing at the time. One game I particularly enjoyed as a kid was Burn Cycle (rating board, what's that?). They should make a sequel with the new body, what with all these pronoun switching these days (if you played, you know what I mean).
This game was unfortunately not as good as Burn Cycle unless you dig the "train full of high school Japanese girls" setting. Unfortunately, I didn't recognize most of the cast but I think they're pretty famous? I did recognize Fukuda Kyoko and oh boy that was a quick flashback to the past. Since this game came out in 1998 and she was born in 1982, she actually should have been going to high school at the time, if my gamer math is correct. Then again, why the hell would you want to go to school when you can act in a mediocre 6,800 yen PS1 FMV murder mystery game?
Oh crap, my book report is due tomorrow!
Yeah, 6,800 yen for a 3 hour game. Ouch. Of course it's way cheaper now but can you imagine if someone were to try to sell a shitty 2-3 hour game for $60 today??
Rating Pending? I'll rate it right now: diarrhea
They would rave about how amazing the shit game is of course! Because everything is backwards now! Fortunately, this game is at least entertaining... somewhat. You can only go to a few carriages and the lounge and you're just basically going from room to room asking questions. There's a time limit too, which is annoying.
Arbitrary time limits that make you restart the game? We love those!!
For some weird reason, you can look at every person's chest and knees and no worries, you can stare at the crotch of the guys too if that's your thing. And no, there is absolutely no point of looking down in terms of beating the game.
Teacher's knees here because looking at high school girls' knees is sick.
Turns out that I've been mentally scarred by all the moe social media outrage vis-à-vis chichi bukuro blood drives, wrinkled/clear skirt, etc. that I forget what regular Japanese girls look like. Oh yeah, I totally forgot that most Japanese girls are flat as a board!
Turns out clothing is pretty effective at covering body parts... IRL
Score: 2 There's an important clue on one of the girl's chest! If you inspect each one carefully, you'll discover that you're a pervert! out of 5 (2.5 hours to beat)
Anyways, you go from room to room, asking questions and uncovering more questions to ask. Swap the disc, repeat, and finally at the end of disc 4, you have to actually do some thinking to present the correct evidence to identify the killer.
It's just like Murder on the Orient Express but with Japanese girls and the mystery not even remotely as interesting and there you have Murder on the Eurasia Express in a nutshell. However, I still gave it a score of 2 as barely worth checking out because I felt the human drama was interesting enough to warrant a couple hours of your time.
One of the girls gives you (the camera) a kiss at the end and your secretary is different depending on how fast you beat the game, etc but no way I'm going to replay just to see those minor differences.
At least the manual is really nice. Took a quick pic before purging.
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
Some of you may recall that I didn't like the first Yarudora game Double Cast that much. After all, that's a post currently tied in first place for the record of most number of people to leave a comment. Unfortunately, it was not able to reach what would have been a record at 3 people but at least I know 2 people know what I'm talking about.
Would it kill you to leave a comment? Anybody? Hello?
Maybe this post will finally reach the record because I'm happy to report that the 2nd game in the series was much more to my liking. It may not be everybody's cup of tea as it's not suspenseful like Double Cast but I like these sweet, wistful love stories. This old man remembers back when I was young lad, playing FF7 by myself, holed up in my room. Back then, we jerked off to Tifa even if her boobs were a single triangle polygon, none of this complaining about sports bras. Ahh, to be young again!
Ack, the sun... and a girl! That's like gamer kryptonite and garlic!
Even if you prefer a more dramatic story like the first game, I'm sure all (three) of us can agree that the animation is much improved in this game. The PSP version constantly nags you with trailers of the other games when you reach an ending so I was reminded of how bad the first game looked every time I saw the trailer.
The story is about a young girl you run into that appears to have lost her memories... AGAIN. Yeah, I guess if you're going to make a sequel, might as well keep the same theme? However, this time, it's just a cute girl in a school uniform that thankfully isn't violent (except for the panty shot kick to the face).
This plot has a twist: normal brain functions! Ah wait, nope, false alarm. Amnesia again.
You know, normally ADV games have a separate system save file that tracks what choices or endings you've seen and how many hours you played across your various saves. This allows you to save at what looks like an important point and then try both ways without having to play again from scratch. Unfortunately, these Yarudora games require you to keep saving over one file after you reach an ending. Even though the skip function is pretty good, it was annoying to have to start over and over again.
Fortunately, at least this game makes use of that annoyance by having some clever variations and endings depending on the last ending you saw. For example, if you make the right choices to make Tomoko happy in the beginning of the game, she offers to show you her legs. Like any normal gamer, I wanted to see that again, but on the subsequent playthrough, even if you make the same choices, and you're like, ok time to show your legs, she's like, "What the fuck you talking about?" I thought that was pretty clever. My translation may not be totally accurate. The only Japanese words I know are "Rasengan" and "kawaii" after all.
巨乳死すべし？ I'm fine with any size.
In fact, the last ending I unlocked was Bad Ending 12 because it requires 3 consecutive playthroughs. First, you have to slap Tomoko, then the game asks you at the beginning of the second playthrough if you're ok with violence towards women and if you respond, "Yes, the bitch deserved it." (again paraphrasing), you unlock Bad Ending 17. Then, you have to slap Tomoko again, and she fucking knocks you out with 3 hits to unlock Bad Ending 12. I think there's a lesson in there somewhere but I sure can't figure it out. After all, I'm just a normal, cruel, cisgender, white male with no perspective on anything other than how awesome life is.
Huh? Doesn't white privilege mean I get all the Japanese girls I want?
Score: 3.5 "Best not to think about how old Mayu looks like" out of 5 (9.5 hours to unlock all endings, 93% complete)
Ahem, joking aside, I thought this game was well done overall. The animation was good, both Tomoko and Mayu were cute and well voiced, and the music was great. At the very least, my plan to purge this game to make room was thwarted and I'll likely be holding onto my PS1 copy for now. Out of all the interactive anime games I played so far, if I were to recommend just one, this would be the one... at least for now. I'm not the only one that dug this game and the soundtrack as there's a theme song cover from Saekano, a reference I totally didn't get till now. (This old man still prefers the OG version, but cool cover for the kids.)
Oh I get the reference now! (Official anime game expert here)
I don't remember if there was a direct reference to this game in Saekano. It's been a while since I watched both seasons. Maybe playing the Saekano game will jog my memory (yet another game in my ever growing pile of games).
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
Long time readers of the blog (all 2 of you) may have noticed some recurring themes. Honestly, I'm running out of timely and topical material to keep these posts interesting. After all, there is nothing more boring than reading somebody's breakdown of a video game in a "traditional" review.
One issue is that YouTube is now a pedophile infested commercial sell out and I'm no longer interested in watching "collectors" engage in their unhealthy obsessions. Speaking of unhealthy buying habits, there are going to be lots of anime games coming up. As I found out with Momotenshi, these games are great to blast through in about 5-10 hours and are easy to purge from the ever growing pile.
So why don't I start by giving a quick summary of the story of Double Cast, follow it up with my thoughts on the gameplay, and conclude with the good and bad points about the game... BOOOORIIIING!!
Wake me when you're finished or if Shitaku shuts down
Double Cast is the first title in the Yarudora series of anime games that I'm working on purging. As an anime, the animation is a bit rough at times and it's definitely not as well produced as Momotenshi. There were several scenes where it looked it was drawn by different people. However, it has a skip feature so that's a big advantage. Unfortunately, the skip option is buried in the option so I actually slogged through it 10 or so times before discovering the feature.
Not very automatic if you have to press △ IMO...
I played the PSP version as I owned the UMD (emphasis on the past tense). Fortunately, there is no real issue with the aspect ratio because the original PS1 game also had widescreen with a big black section for the text. You can either choose to view the text on top or adjust the aspect ratio to make room on the bottom. (why would you do that?)
I swear, this is like the 3rd WicDonalds I've seen in a anime/game.
Unlike some of the more "anime" type of anime games, this is definitely an ADV game with a whole butt load of endings and a fair number of dialogue choices. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out which choices mattered and I got stuck on a couple of bad endings. After the frustration of getting the same ending a few times, I eventually resorted to looking up a guide. The guide, by the way, has a whopping FORTY-FOUR playthroughs to get 100% completion. Like, fuck that shit, I played through it enough to watch all the endings and even then I only got like 93% or so. Good enough for me, I say.
These black screens show the MC's emotion without showing his face
Some saavy gamer who's played this game might catch me in the act and say, "Hey, these screenshots are from like the first 5 minutes of the game! I bet you didn't even play it!!" Oh my, you got me! Time to make an apology video on YT. I'M GOING VIRAL!!! Actually, I just loaded this up in an emulator to post some screenshots after I played it for like 15 hours (most of it spent watching it skip forward). I never could bother to figure out those plugins or whatnot on my PSP to take screenshots.
Trigger warning! There are a couple panty shots. (Spoiler: Pure white)
Score: 2 the panti is pure white but the girl... not so much out of 5 (15 hours played)
Kidding about trigger warnings aside, this anime/game is not super gory like Elfen Lied but the fact that I even compared the two might be a sign that some shit is going to go down. By the way, am I crazy or is Elfen Lied not even that great an anime?
Overall, I found the story pretty cliché and mediocre. I mean, it's a group of college kids making a movie and the title is Double Cast. Not so hard to guess what the game is about. The OST at least was pretty good. I jammed to a few tunes.
Granted, I haven't played a ton of these interactive anime games but the mechanics at least were ok provided you looked in the options menu. I can only hope that the later games offer up a better story and animation. However, watching the same anime over and over with a few scene variations is not exactly my cup of tea so maybe this isn't my type of genre. At the very least, I was able to sell this one on the ol' eBays to pay off 1% of my latest payday loan. #MAGA (obligatory hashtag)
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
Funny Jhipster story, I was searching for info on this game based on the cover art of the copy that yes I physically own and Google had to autocorrect because I thought 幽 was actually 山. The cover designer thought it would be clever to make little blue ghost lights instead of properly writing out the little 幺 parts. To add insult to injury, that's not even the regular Kanji for a haunted house, it's like geesh, stop trying to be "artistic".
Oh thanks (read as: fuck you) for the furigana
Ok yeah, talking about Kanji isn't exactly like super fun blog post but really that's the most interesting thing I could come up with when talking about this borefest. Maybe I played too many horror games and am jaded. Other Jhipsters might find it scary but personally, this game was perfect for turning off the lights, laying in bed, and just fucking falling dead asleep like a log bored to tree sap tears. The spine card says, "Please don't play by yourself" and they're right. You can seriously injure yourself if you suddenly fall asleep in random places. In fact, they should have added an extra warning to never play when operating heavy machinery. Lawsuit waiting to happen right there, IMO.
It's unfortunately not half as scary as it looks
To sum up the "game", you go through a series of PS1 era CG tour of the haunted house while you hear or read scary stories from the staff. The scary stories are very typical ghost stories like, "I was walking home at night and I saw a ghost! Scary!" For some reason, there were a lot of stories about obasans. Total speculation here but I'm guessing it's because they could reuse various pictures of the same old lady with the scary make-up.
Geesh mom! How many times have I told you to knock first?!
There's was a minor meta story about the owner of the haunted house and I liked the credits as they show where ghosts are hiding in the real life pictures that were used throughout the game. I liked the 90s Japan aesthetics as well.
Hey, that's my apartment working as a coporate salaryman slave back in the day!
Score: 1.5 scariest part is when the obasan opens the door while you're masturbating out of 5
If the idea of an audio book of "scary" campfire stories on the PS1 appeals to you, go right ahead and give this a whirl. (Needless to say, you also need to be fluent in Japanese.) It was a good one for me to go through in a couple of nights because I've been having trouble going to sleep due to stress. Additional bonus, it's a time respecter so it was nice to be able to purge this one and make room for another game in my hoarder closet.
You'll need to play through it twice to read and hear all the stories but you can skip through the repeats pretty quickly which is I why I gave it an extra .5 score for being technically easy to blast through.
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
Well, that was quick! While I was going through my customary purge cleaning sessions in a desperate but ultimately futile attempt to make some more space in my Closet of Shame™, I came across a copy of Dancing Blade: Katte ni Momotenshi! (PS1 version). I kind of heard this "game" was short so I decided to pop it in and play through it before I toss it for the Gamestop dumpster divers and I'm now writing this 3 hours later. Even shorter than I imagined (always a plus for the pro reviewer #respectmytime)!
The blue "interactive anime" tag makes this a "game"
I'm not going into the whole hipster debate of what constitutes a game but straight up, this is basically 2 OVAs of about 30 minutes each with minor branching animation paths that lead to 4 different endings. In fact, the PSP version is just a plain interactive UMD Video. I would call this even less of a game compared to other animated adventure games where every other decision results in death (you know which game I'm talking about). It's literally just two anime OVAs with one short clip difference between the endings. Which OVA you "play" depends on your first decision to eat either Kibi dango or go to a restaurant. If you decide to eat Kibi dango, you watch the main story while the other option is kind of a fan service episode around Oinu (big boobs) and Kijime (even bigger boobs)
Aw fuck it, might as well watch
And that brings us to the plot, which is not exactly a Shakespearean masterpiece. You play some guy (voiced by Ogata Megumi-chan) surrounded by hot chicks whom you met by I guess whatever happened as shown in like 3 seconds during the opening song. Basically, it's like Momotaro but the dog, bird, and Momo are hot chicks and the monkey is some robot. Whatever, I'm not some Ebert anime reviewer but as animes go, it's about as unremarkable as you can imagine. At least the animation is pretty good and the transitions were almost seamless. The DC Complete edition seems to have a tiny bit more content but you have to hunt for it.
Pretty much half the game in a nutshell
The only real problem is that you can only skip the intro video. During the game itself, pressing start just prompts you to save and so be prepared to multitask as you wait for the animation to drag on to the next selection. Once you watch two of the endings, the rest of the hour or so will be spent watching minor variations and mostly waiting.
Score: 2 (well at least it's better than more SAO attempted rape scenes but that's just stating the obvious) out of 5
Besides the lack of skip option, there's nothing technically terrible about this anime but there's really no reason for this to be a "game". I will go with a 2 just based purely on the fact that it wasn't broken and the anime wasn't terrible but you can just watch the thing on YT or whatever. This will definitely be purged from my collection and so I have a bit more space to buy more useless shit. I guess onto the sequel!
Mission Accomplished!
The good ol' days...
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
So in my foolish quest to start yet another series that I will probably never finish, I decided it was fine time to check out Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg, the first of the Atelier series which lately seems to be pumping out new games like clockwork.
First of all, the official title is indeed "Atelier Marie" as shown by the title art. Based on the fact that the Katakana pronunciation is "Mari", the only logical conclusion is that the title is in French, NOT English. Ooh la la, fancy! Though her full name is Marlone, so I have no freakin' clue.
Atelier Marie, très bon!
I did own a physical copy of the "Plus" version when I had the silly idea of owning physical copies of the entire Atelier series. I even went and bought the Atelier Marie & Elie bundle for the Dreamcast. This bundle is especially notable for the fact that it contains nice bonuses such as a phone strap, screen-savers to install on your Win 95/98 PC and even a virus as an extra surprise bonus!
No, I'm not shitting you, the W32/Kriz virus somehow ended up on the CD-ROM for the game published by KOOL KIZZ, putting a stop to further sales. I don't know the details as this version doesn't seem particularly rare (I paid $20) so maybe they fixed it. I don't know if my copy has the bonus feature but I'd rather not find out. I need my Win95 VM to play old games.
KOOL KIZZ, a mix of the words "kids" and "jizz"? Clever!
Anyways, in my futile attempt to make room in my closet of shame™, I sold my PS1 copy and bought a digital copy like all the kool kizz to play on my Vita. Or more accurately, I decided to put it up for sale after playing it on Vita for a while and finding out just how boring this game is.
It starts off with a nice intro, and then you're on your own with a small bit of change and no idea what to do, and yes, I read the fucking manual. Not only do you have very little money, you have no idea how to make anything and as soon as you step foot outside the town, you get destroyed because you are very, VERY weak at combat.
No in-game guided tutorial for baby gamer?? Score: 1 Awful -IGN
The game does start off very slow as the key to getting any kind of money is scrounging up some Nyuzu in the forest nearby and making some Kurafuto to sell to the Academy. Don't even bother trying to fight anybody for a while. Finally, when you get some money to buy the recipe books at the academy, you can start fulfilling requests from the barkeeper.
There are a few important gameplay elements that are not explained at all. First, you can recruit Shia, your friend, for FREE as long as you want. (After all, what are friends for if not free labor?) Second, you have to pay the barkeeper repeatedly to hear rumors in order to unlock additional areas to explore. Third, once you're able to go to the fairy forest, you can hire fairies to do some tasks for you automatically. Being able to send them off to faraway places saves you LOTS of time in gathering ingredients. If you go yourself, you'll waste a bunch of days to get back and you'll likely get killed anyway.
What the game boils down to is not unlike working as a temp in some corporate office. Gather ingredients, make shit, make some money, buy some equipment, beat up a copier with a bat, and bitch about your job to your buddies at Chotchkie's. Some events pop up throughout the years, some of which I missed I'm sure but it's not like there's much story to speak of even if it is all fully voiced. There are a few mini-games thrown in but they're very, very simple. I thought the characters looked pretty good, certainly a very different style from the recent games but it has its own classic appeal. The music was nothing to write home about.
One of those boring, every day events...
Score: 2 mostly for series legacy and originality for its time (I think) out of 5.
I get that it might have been an original concept for its time and it IS a 20 year-old game. Apparently a lot of people enjoyed it because there's so many ports. But I've played games just as old that was much more fun. I would score this one a 2 as a game barely NOT being a waste of your time.
The moepocalypse creepy hands mobile version
While the actual gameplay was pretty repetitive and boring, you do get a sense of satisfaction when you're finally able to make a rare item for the first time. I was able to make the Philosopher's Stone on my first playthrough to get the best(?) ending mostly by working my fairies all day, every day. I mean that because there is an option to let them play that I NEVER selected. I'm not paying you guys to lounge around, you good-for-nothings!
I also beat a couple bosses by making some Mega Furamu, which by the way takes a ridiculously long time to make. In the end, I feel like I got the full experience and there's no way I'm going to replay this game to get the other 6 endings. You can just watch them on YouTube like all the kool kizz in a few minutes as they're all very short.
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
Lain is one of my favorite animes of all time so it's pretty much impossible to approach this game with any semblance of objectivity (though really, objective reviews are pretty much bunk anyway). If you've been living under a mainstream rock, serial experiments lain is exactly what it is called. It is a series (aka serial) of media experiments with the goal of pushing the boundaries of each respective medium centered around the character of lain. And when it comes to the game version of lain, BOY does it push the envelopes. If you didn't like the anime (WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!!!) then you might as well stop reading here.
I really tried to come up with a genre for this game and could only think of "mind-fuck". The only other game that I could think of that kinda fits in this genre is Spec Ops: The Line. (I know, I know, not a Japanese game, JHipster FAIL, SORRY). If you have not played Spec Ops, you need to get on that right now as it's one of my favorite games from last gen. But given that Spec Ops is a 3rd person shooter, you're probably gonna say I'm crazy to put lain in the same "genre" when you boot it up.
If you were to call this a game, even in Jhipster standards used to reading hours and hours of text in adventure games, I would have to call this one of the worst "games" of all time. This "game" is nothing but a series of audio and anime clips trapped in one of the most laggiest and painfully slow interfaces of all time. I don't know if I would have the patience to sit in front of a TV and slog through the awful interface for hours on end. But no worries, this game is ultra-rare and impossible to find anyway so forget about playing the actual PS1 disc. I played this game on the PSP before I finally caved and bought it with the equity on my house. I now live in a cardboard box so I never did get to play this on the PS1 but anyways let's not get into my personal life story.
You know what makes ME sad? Looking at my wallet.
Only an idiot or insane Jhipster would expend the capital necessary to obtain this ridiculously expensive and awful game. But the STORY man, it's SOOOOOOO CRAZY! The plot in this game has no connection to the anime and lain is a little older and she's SOOOOO CUTE!
The only problem is that she's kinda crazy and the plot centers around lain and her psychiatrist Toukou. Toukou doesn't really come off as a very experienced and adept psychiatrist and she quickly loses the upper hand in dealing with lain. And of course, once lain gets her hands on a computer... let me just phrase it this way: WHEN ARE PEOPLE GONNA LEARN TO KEEP LAIN OFFLINE???
The story in this game is a perfect companion to the anime in that it's much more intimate and serves as a kind of microcosm contrast to the vast global changes in the anime. There is no Protocol 7 and while computers do play a role, the story is more focused on the private lives of the two main characters and their mental state. What I really loved about the plot is that you get to peek into what appears to be a girl and a woman's perfectly normal and mundane lives via their records and diaries. But little by little, abnormalities crop up that gradually build up into what I can only described as incredibly disturbing and real.
The divorced(?) father that a child sorely misses. A distant boyfriend and a relationship that goes sour. Having difficulty fitting in at school socially. A boss you don't like and rumors at the workplace. All these little things in life that don't go well but seems TOTALLY plausible somehow begin to gradually escalate into some really CRAZY stuff that is just seriously disturbing. But the craziest part of the game comes after you beat it.
SPOILERS!!!!! You may want to skip the rest and stop reading here if you plan to play the game yourself or use a translation guide.
When you start the game, it acts like you're logging into a computer and asks for your name. Now you may have completely forgotten about that after slogging through that awful interface and listening for hours to lain and Toukou discussing all sorts of philosophical ideas such as existence, memory, and consciousness; not to mention a healthy heaping of discourse on the nature and various types of mental diseases. After hearing about how your existence is defined by recognition from others (I am observed, therefore I am) and the difference between memory vs just a record/data, you get the sense that the game is trying to bring itself to life... in YOUR BRAIN.
And THEN, because you don't need a physical body to exist (cause LOGIC!), lain dumps her data onto the wired and well, let me just say that the ESRB would NOT be happy with what comes next.
PEGI & ESRB would NOT be cool with this today.
AND THEN, after THAT, when you're already feeling a bit crazy and depressed (the game's logo is "make me sad" and it's not fucking kidding), the data version of lain and Toukou SAY YOUR NAME with cute little innocuous message like, "Come join me [YOUR NAME]."
The GAME IS BASICALLY ASKING YOU TO OFF YOURSELF!
I guess the developers recorded hundreds of syllables so that it can say your name. It's not Siri technology so thankfully, it doesn't sound very well integrated but holy smokes, it can be shocking when the game is like, "I'm so lonely, come join me [YOUR NAME]".
I'm not even going to go into the brief shower scene that would probably make this game borderline illegal today (ok I just did). But seriously, given the themes of mental illness, depression, suicide, and the way the game tries to TALK TO YOU combined with all the press, social networks, public relations, and gaming "journalism" (barf) nowadays, I think we're past the era where something like this can ever be made again. If Mortal Kombat X is rated mature, this game should be rated "mature with ACTUAL mature, ADULT themes not just blood and gore for the unsupervised and totally immature kids".
Score: 4 hallucinations out of 5
As a game, I would score serial experiments lain a 1 but the slow progression of mental breakdowns and the seriously disturbing way the game tries to break its own boundaries easily deserves a 5. Mathematically, that would average to a 3 but I just love the concept and creativity behind lain as a serial experiment so much, that I just have to give this a 4. For others, this game will be just as wonderful or just simply impossible to play (putting language barrier JHipster smugness aside).
The minus 1 point is also for being SO FUCKING EXPENSIVE.
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
Xenogears? What the? Isn't this like SUPER mainstream? Hey look, the true Jhipster doesn't shy away from stuff just because it's mainstream ok? Only a pompous Jhipster-wannabe would avoid a game just because it's not super niche to the max.
Also to start with, the Japanese in this game is hardcore like for reals. To give you an example, in English, you don't have to really care WHAT a Jasper is (an opaque, impure variety of silica). But in Japanese, when you see 碧玉, you're like WTF, how am I supposed to read that? So until you look up the word in a dictionary, learn a new word that has ABSOLUTELY no practical value, you just have this annoying word in the dialogue that you CAN'T READ. Shitan in particular seems to take every opportunity to use words that have like 20 other synonyms that are WAY more common and instead decides to pick the most obscure version (trying to sound smart and shit I guess).
So Margaret knows the location of the ??? How the fuck you read that??
I first played this game on the PS1 sometime in the late 90s in English before my transformation into Jhipster and never did finish it. I think the lame platforming in the Babel Tower was what did me in. The sensation of frustration and anger definitely seemed familiar, at least. Fortunately, this time around I was able to finish the game thanks to the convenience of Vita portability. I was however annoyed that I had to rebuy the PSN version despite owning the disc due to a freezing bug if you don't have the original PS1 hardware. Anyway, playing through this game again almost 2 decades later, my guess is pacing is why I couldn't finish it as a young lad with oodles of free time. It is really the only major flaw in this game.
Typical Merican gamers who hate to read will often complain how the game ran out of budget and was reduced to just narration in disc 2 but personally, I think the real problem was disc ONE. The first disc was so poorly paced that if the game's story fully played out in the style of the first disc, the entire game would probably take like 200+ hours to finish. The whole chapter in Kislev was incredibly drawn out and WAY too much time was spent on Rico, a character that plays no part in the larger story and could've easily been a minor character. In fact, he really has no reason to tag around as he himself asked to be dropped off at Kislev (and was promptly ignored).
NOOOOOOOO! READING!!! GAH!!! MY MERICAN EYES!!!!!!!!
Once you finally near the end of disc one, the story begins to pick up and what you end up with is a nice peeling of reveals like the story is one giant onion of surprises. Of course, it's a bit rushed but at this point, the pick up in pace is a welcome change after the SLOW progression of disc one.
While the ending is not particularly impressive if you're a long time sci-fi nerd (umm Dune Messiah anyone??), I can see how those new to sci-fi and only used to fantasy RPGs would be suitably impressed. For me, the highlight was more in the personal story of Fei and his connections to the events in the story. Overall, I do have to agree that the story was excellent and probably way ahead of its time at least on video game consoles. I was also happy to see Zoharu in there and it made me want to go play Xenosaga again. I'm gonna pretend that those games are connected.
The game itself was fun to play as well. It was fun to build up those death blows and there was not too much grinding. Some of the boss battles required some very specific strategies in typical Square style so it wasn't a matter of just mashing attack. Overall, I had a good time with the game except for the camera that was just a LITTLE too close and those stupid, stupid, lame platforming bits.
The music was also tastefully done as the game didn't feel the need to constantly bombard you with BGM for every second of the game (Compile Heart, I'm looking at you). Instead you hear music at appropriate moments to enhance the experience, used I would daresay even sparingly. While personally, the OST wasn't exactly memorable, it was definitely excellent overall with some nice gems.
This song kindly lets you know some EPIC SHIT is about to go down
Score: 3.5 No seriously Rico, why are you STILL here? out of 5 (63 hours to finish)
I was tempted to give this game a 3 because of the problem with pacing, which really is the biggest issue to what could have easily been a wonderful game. However, I have to admit that the story was excellent and the game itself was fun to play. I also have a soft spot for the 90s anime cutscenes (though very few) so 3.5 it is then as an ALMOST great game. This is really just my personal score and you're looking at a guy that couldn't even finish it the first time around after all.
Nintendo, HAAAAAALP! Why won't Sony censor dem naughty pixels??
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
