CWs for Azusa999: sui*, child death, poisoning, burning alive, sexual harassment, homophobia,

A wide-swinging adventure game about suicidal ideation in the Lost Years and amid the rapid industrialization of Japan. The train is the vehicle that brings the worker, the student, the abandoned veteran, to their death, sapping their life force and general will to live as they struggle to get by. The writing here and smaller character sensibilities wear the 19 year old solo dev very proudly, but really lands a certain mundanity and annoyance in having such a simple space to navigate. The sensibilities about suicide and blame reek of the era and I just generally find musings about suicide in the abstract to fall flat, but I like this game a bit even beyond it's historical position. Not a must play but if it's in your interests already don't skip it.

While I'm not TOTALLY sold on the game's writing, relying mostly on metaphors with the subtlety and nuance of a sledge hammer that reveal a certain naivety in the creator, it's hard not to love Azusa 999. It's so striking, so evocative; a wonderful concept told with an incredible aesthetic that at its best becomes a murky ocean of complex feelings, an almost overwhelming rush of sadness in all its forms.

It helps that the game exists as a piece of this fascinating scene in early Japanese indie, created by a 19 year old (explaining...basically everything I don't love about the writing--this is so much better than anything I ever could have done at that age!) with the new RPG Maker, the game having plenty of value just through its historical context.

just wanna mention to ppl interested in playing this that have windows and, like me, werent entralled with the idea of going thru pc-98 emulator setup: it has an installer to make windows setup extremely simple (fucking thank you to obskyr for that, and for translating. worth looking into the cultural notes on the website that are on the download site too)

the game itself is cool!! v much a doujin game from 1997 in some ways but looking past the roughness, it has the charm of a personal and emotionally driven work by a guy who was just barely an adult at the time, standing out starkly from other pc-98 rpgmaker contemporaries. which is to say, the ones we know about, which are basically corpse party, peret em heru, palette (a little later on but feels closest to azusa), and not much else. but i dont think it's jumping the gun too much to say that it must've been really unique and sensitive for its time, and you can still feel it somewhat.

"But rest assured, it was spectacular"

Eye-opening little piece of videogame heritage - an early RPGMaker project that was released in 1997 for the PC-98, yet has many of the modern quirks you generally expect from similar titles that are shared nowadays. Being the sole handiwork of a young creator, there's a certain naivety to the way it presents its little vignettes of despair and hope, but they're handled with such sensitive care that they simply don't fail at being evocative. While I'm not particularly blown away by the subject matter nor symbolism, it's so easy to get swept up by how emotionally charged it comes across, and thorny in the ways all the most resonant stories are. I must extend some laudation for them having the courage to publish it at a time where this was far from the norm or in demand.

RPGMaker trappings are present, but relatively forgivable if only because I have no idea how inflexible RPGMD98 is. Despite structural rigidity, it manages to play with the form - the spell list is formatted like pages of a diary, the player's level suggests the character's age, etc. Rest assured, there is no combat, I have to wonder how easy it was to resist implementing it despite being the engine's primary function - there are a handful of modern atmospheric/emotionally forward RPGMaker titles that insist on it despite no benefit. Azusa 999 is even stylised in a way that honestly feels timeless (I honestly thought for the longest time that this was a Bitsy game!), minimalist environs and slim colour palettes - even atmospheric ambience shifts to match story beats, it really did suck me in!

Azusa 999's English translation was as recent as 2020, gracefully packaged with an application holder that casts aside the headache of setting up a PC-98 emulator, as well as a wonderful player companion guide by translator Obskyr complete with a historical foreword and cultural notes. It's all a wonderful read, and fills me with hope that any number of old, forward-thinking, experimental or personal projects from the early Japanese indie scene are still just waiting to be shared across the pond.

What an amazing and deep train journey.

The stories told were short but intense, and all the messages were clear. Also, its so interesting seeing how a 1997’s young man has portrayed its present in a videogame, using it as a way to, maybe, express how he feels about the age he’s living.

Also BIG BIG shoutout to (insertar nombre del traductor) for its AMAZING work translating it and building the companion book so we could get all the context, so we understand the author’s references. It makes the hole game experience much richer.