Ihatovo Monogatari

released on Mar 05, 1993
by Hect

The story depicts the action as taking place in the utopian world of Ihatovo. The game focuses on collecting information (notebooks from Miyazawa's fairy tales) and items (that are related to those fairy tales) instead of fighting monsters. Some of the surprises that the player finds includes a movie theater that is always closed, the opportunity to play the role of a temporary school teacher, and having portraits of unique non-player characters that show up while talking to them. Inspired by the stories of Kenji Miyazawa, the story covers nine chapters and surreal environments.


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beauty

one of the few games with a class consciousness

Its literary, un-gamey take on the 16-bit RPG format precedes so many RPGMaker adventure games of the 90s and beyond. Not super my thing, but mandatory for anyone who's into that scene and style. A product of a more ambitious time for video games.

Even if a lot of the morals are pretty obvious within these several fables (basically don’t lie) there’s still something about how it’s all presented. I never knew anything about Miyazawa until having played this, but it’s pretty clear that his style has had a huge impact on Japanese culture. I particularly think of Studio Ghibli but that’s probably just the most famous example.

The stories are mostly pretty simple but they still might make you ponder for other reasons. For example, the story where the rabbit lies about his accomplishments, as maybe we shouldn’t expect some other insecure brute might kill us over it? I mean lying is bad, but shouldn’t we also consider why people will kill over some things that are so frivolous? The story ends up being a bit deeper than I think it intends for that reason. I guess you can never know other peoples’ limits.

Also elephants trample the house of a rich man but the servants are just collateral? It never even mentions them. Also likely unintentional.

Overall I highly recommend it but it certainly isn’t perfect and not even so much a game as something to be experienced. I stop to think if this would have been better represented as a movie or TV show, but no I think the interactivity of the medium of video games feels more intentional. There’s something about exploring an entire town and talking to everyone that immerses you more than simply riding third person behind someone else experiencing these stories. I might say this a lot about art, but it really is something that can be hard to explain.

plays a little archaically, but has an amazing colletion of stories that come together to form a beautiful world. I would recommend taking your time with this one, maybe limit yourself to 1-2 chapters a day to give each chapter some time to sit with you.

Beautiful and methodical pseudo-fanfiction about the works of Kenji Miyazawa and really more about his legacy in culture. There's a big element of this game absolutely not having the same takeaway about Miyazawa's works, especially in the way this game thinks of the Galactic Railroad, but it is making delicate and future-looking moves with the adventure game formula that grip the RPG Maker community to this day that make it real easy to not get so hung up on that. Ihatovo Monogatari imposes a quest to chase down a fleeting mythical figure against the daily mundanity of the downtrodden workers, farmers, peasants, and youth. While you float through fantastical moments, life moves on: the young family moves south for the winter, the scorned worker is chased out of town suddenly, the boy you helped out last week died of a fever off screen. The things you chase in life can only amount to the character of your actions that get you there. Live wisely, fiercely, and kindly to struggle along side those who surround you.

Like with Metal Slader Glory, I'm a sucker for a good story. Whether it be in a tightly picked adventure with thrills and excitement like Yakuza 2, or a slow, contemplative story like The House of Fata Morgana, a good story can make any game brilliant. And today, I want to tell you a tale of a little game called The Stories of Ihatovo.

Ihatovo Monogatari as it's known in Japan, is a Super Famicom game released solely there, never seeing an international release. It's not hard to see why, given that it's solely an adventure game with no battles or many puzzles to solve. This isn't your Gabriel Knights or Shadowgates of old, this is a game that has you walk from place to place and discover the strange world around you and its inhabitants.

The game is focused on the works of Kenji Miyazawa, a poet and children's story writer from the early 20th century. Each chapter is focused on his works, and the player character has to find the journals based on Kenji's works and relive the stories they're based on. One such story has you talking to animals and seeing the tale of Hommoi and the Shellfire, or another about Ozbel and the Elephants.

There's no way to fail in this game, the only obstacle is not knowing what to do next, but the game encourages you to walk around and talk to everyone, and you'll get an understanding of what to do, where to go, and the world around you. The town of Ihatovo is very quirky, filled with interesting characters and things to see and do, so you're never truly lost, as most chapters are contained to one area, but some in the town do require some deduction to figure out what to do. If you're familiar with Kenji's fables, then you'll know what to do exactly, but I imagine most aren't so some exploration is needed.

I didn't expect a lot going into this game, except that it was about fables from a Japanese author that have been held in high regard, much like Aesop's fables have been regarded in the West. What I wasn't expecting was a truly thought-provoking experience full of strange, colourful characters and their many weird, wonderful stories.

As said, you don't really affect the world around you much, just see all the little adventures of the world around you, but it's what you experience that makes this game simply wonderful. Also the ending hit me like a ton of bricks, especially coming off a watch of the animated Night on the Galactic Railroad movie, which definitely helped further understanding of the ending.

But besides those small gripes, I hold this game in such high regard. It's truly a marvelous story filled with great characters and a serene, well realised world filled with stories that you'll want to discover. Also the soundtrack is one of the finest in gaming.

You'll be doing the world a favour by playing this truly wonderful experience.