A recently fan-translated RPG/roguelite/dungeon crawler with an incredible sense of atmosphere and sound: it can be haunting, anxiety-inducing or beautiful whenever it wants to be even in repeated playthroughs which I was very impressed with.

Gameplay while fairly simple is fun and well-balanced, and the post-apocalyptic, abstract story that you sort of slowly unravel a little bit of Dark Souls-style is filled with extremely striking imagery and while slightly too vague for my taste, I think it is very very lovely, I like to think it’s sort of an allegory about learning to deal with loss, trauma and/or the many issues with the world and to live life in spite of life’s inherent imperfection anyways. Which, I dunno, is executed real well and I think it’s neat. Good game.

Sting Entertainment's Baroque attached sci-fi horror aesthetics to a Mystery Dungeon-ian roguelike, with an evil twist. On the gameplay side, two of its most noteworthy characteristics surround the items: Their risk factor (most items must be 'identified' by using them, and plenty of which could backfire and harm the player instead) and their dual-functionality. The former refines the concept of oppressive, high-stakes dungeon-crawling, and adds even more unpredictability to an already RNG-laden genre, but it's the latter that propels this above typical roguelikes: Obsolete equipment and unnecessary pickups can be thrown at enemies for considerable damage, with different properties depending on their type (e.g. elemental weapons deal damage of their respective element when thrown). Sting addressed the hassle of inventory management by simply turning clutter into useful ranged weapons.

They also stand apart for their anomalous areas, transporting players to grotesque, industrial spaces complete with limited visibility and creepy enemies. The effect is at times scary and surreal, like being cast into a nightmare with no end in sight, just floor after floor of desperate struggling against progressively otherworldly monsters. In this sense, Baroque took the original MegaTen equation to the extreme, accentuating both its heavy atmosphere and its mischievous, unforgiving nature.

Que cursi va a sonar esto pero va: Baroque lo siento como un incentivo para romper el ciclo.
Se le compara de forma automática con otros títulos solo por etiquetas como "Dungeon Crawler" y "Roguelikes".
Digo de forma automática porque me da la sensación de que cuando alguien se encuentra con propuestas de este tipo así de golpe, pues uno siente tal agobio que necesita encasillarlo rapidamente con algo literal o "mecánico" que encuentre minimamente familiar....ponele. De lo contrario se asusta.
Para mi, Baroque tiene mas similitud con juegos como Mr.Drller: ambos titulos comparten la idea de descender hasta lo más profundo (mayor será la profundidad, mayor será la presión), ambos alteran el progreso en cada nuevo camino y en especial, ambos te educan a tomar decisiones inteligentes saliendo de esa linea recta que creías correcta para poder llegar a distintos resultados, por más que los dos aparenten totalmente opuestos terminan demostrando al final la misma fuerza.

El terror radica en la constante manipulación de una ilusión tipica: creer tener el control de la situación. Como las propias pesadillas, nos controlan sin siquiera poder darnos cuenta en el momento.
Baroque me parece el ejemplo perfecto como respuesta a la tipica frasesita de "el terror en un videojuego funciona gracias a la indefensión". Acá no lo estamos, pero eso no signifique que el juego no dé un cague de miedo terrible porque nos enseña por las malas lo necesario que es afrontar los horrores de la torre, aún si nos ponen en los peores estados posibles. Suena exagerado, pero a mi me recuerda mucho al sentimiento de enfrentar una fobia jodida y tarde o temprano tocará superarlo. Después de todo, herramientas las hay pero los metodos y las respuestas las tenés que saber vos mismo. Lo gracioso es que cuando te crees fuerte por haberlo superado, bueno, aparece otro más jodido después y así hasta el final.
La forma de como a Baroque le gusta reirse de tu inocencia y te putea a lo largo del juego genera como una relación rara entre amor y odio, no sé, una especie de rivalidad curiosa para ver quien le gana a quien, te ve como el mismo gusano de siempre que se clona.
Creía que esta era la faceta definitiva hasta que llego a cierta profundidad y pasa lo mas inesperado: el juego te está suplicando ayuda.
A partir de ESE momento, la mirada de Baroque se me cambió por completo y todo lo que me sucedió atrás comenzó a cobrar un sentido totalmente distinto. La rivalidad muere por completo y pareciera que ya a estas alturas el juego quiere que haga todo lo posible para llegar al último piso.
Al retomar el camino como la última y la definitiva, la torre responde con mucha ausencia; ya no hay dialogo, ya no hay sustos, ya no hay manipulación, solo superviviencia hasta la meta. Esa falta de personajes y vida se acerca muchísimo a esa sensación cuando paseas por un lugar público donde por el día pasa mucho movimiento pero a la noche no hay nadie.
Si bien el final indica la idea de una aceptación total de la situación, yo personalmente lo interpreto mucho más como la forma ultra potente que tiene Baroque de demostrar una bellisima gratitud mutua.


Fuera del videojuego yo todavía tengo mi propio ciclo y hasta el dia de hoy no lo supero. Me es irónico como un juego que aparenta ser hostil, terrorífico y ultra pesimista me termina dando más fe en poder cambiar las cosas de una vez por todas, por más dificil que sea el proceso.

I don't really have a clue how I'm supposed to review this game. I'm not entirely sure who it's for. I didn't even think it would be for me, but it was, and now I'm buying a physical copy of the game just because I think it would be nice to have on my shelf. I have no idea what's wrong with me, but I have an inkling as to why I find it so appealing: It's not often I find a game from this time period that has a unique enough style and concept that I have a hard time finding things to compare it to. In this review, I will still try.

I've never owned a Sega Saturn, nor have I ever been able to read Japanese. Those two things were, for at least a while, something of a prerequisite to play Baroque. However, as of late, there has been something of an effort to translate the game. I presume this is the reason it's been popping up in my Youtube feed via a variety of channels covering this relatively unknown horror roguelike. At first, it seemed like an obvious play. I like horror games. I like roguelikes. I definitely tend to like niche 90's Japanese titles. A quick peek at it definitely caught my attention, as to say that Baroque has a distinct visual style would be something of an understatement. I downloaded a PS1 ISO, patched it up and dove in. I think I ran the dungeon once before this silly thing called life got in the way and I had to put it down.

I came back to it a couple of weeks ago prepared to try and give it another go, when I realized that the Sega Saturn original had been successfully translated only a few days beforehand. At least one person on the Internet has been known to prefer the original version of the game over the Playstation port or the PS2/Wii remake (which is a whole other can of worms). After spending a bit of time with the Saturn version, I was inclined to agree that the visuals had that little extra oomph and ended up playing it start to finish.

The story is definitely one of two main reasons to play this game and I'm honestly kind of hesistant to talk about it in any real detail. The description given at the top of the game's page here seems like a reasonable introduction, but it really doesn't give you a meaningful idea of what you're in for. I'll leave it at this: You get booted out of a lab and into a hellscape of post-apocalyptic industrial noir. Something called the "Great Heat Wave" did this, and you might have also been involved, somehow. An image of an angel gives you a rifle as long as you are tall, and tells you to get to the bottom layer and shoot God. The bottom layer of a massive structure called the Nerve Tower, that is. Yes, you're descending. Don't think about it too hard. Saying any more runs the risk of spoiling the sense of discovery and comprehension that is a core aspect of the Baroque experience, so I'll leave it there.

As to the other reason: Aesthetically, this game is a delight. Your surroundings are dark and dingy and oppressive, composed of metal walls and machinery that does gods know what, vats of liquid and grates and shutters, and everything is connected by cramped and poorly-lit hallways. Where light does exist, it is stark, and everywhere that it fails to find purchase, shadow rules. Ambient tracks ranging from eerie and mystifying to industrial noise to oh dear gods what is that manage to both absorb you and keep you on edge. As you progress downwards, you'll be hounded by freakish creatures known as Grotesques, with a bevy of unique designs that are sure to excite (in one way or another, depending on your tastes). Silent Hill fans are sure to feel right at home here. While Baroque as a whole is fairly light on traditional horror elements, it definitely does a great job of making you feel like you're never truly safe. Whatever horror the gameplay itself doesn't provide is provided plenty of support by the vibes and, of course, the mind-bending story that paints a fairly bleak picture of humanity, but one that isn't entirely without hope.

Artistically, Baroque is an easy A+. But this isn't art class, and games still need to be fun (or at least I feel like they should be). So is it fun? I'm not sure I'm the right guy to be asking on this one. At its core, Baroque is definitely a roguelike. You get one shot to make it through the Nerve Tower, and whether you die or succeed, you go back to the beginning with all of your levels and goodies gone (or at least mostly, but I'll get to that). Of course, where Baroque might differ from some other roguelikes of the era is that death is not only expected but also somewhat required. Each time you start over, you're rewarded with new dialogue and story elements being revealed, which will give you new hints on how to progress. In that sense, your prize for each run is knowledge, which can be a solid motivator if you're into that kind of thing. Otherwise, the only way to actually retain items between runs is to toss them into entities known as Sense Spheres, which will ensure those items will be waiting for you when you return to the surface. You're always guaranteed to encounter at least one Sense Sphere on a full run, and you also get some minor (albeit hidden) stat boosts if you complete a loop, so you if you play well you won't have to walk away completely empty handed.

There's other roguelike elements, too, of course. Floors are randomly generated, although they do follow a certain sort of logic. I'll leave it up to you to figure out the significance of that. There's a variety of eclectic items for you to obtain - swords and coats are probably the most standard of the bunch, while you'll also be able to find fake wings, brands, ampoules, worms, flesh, torturers, bones and "patterns" (read: magical landmines). Each has their own distinct purpose and a wide variety of effects that come along with them. Fake wings are equipment like coats, which typically provide no defensive value but do offer additional effects. Brands are single-use items that let you stamp your body or an item in exchange for a semi-permanent effect. The only way a brand can be removed is through a couple of other, fairly rare effects. Ampoules are basically potions, the effects of which are not necessarily beneficial. Worms can infest your body or a coat, which sounds horrid (and it kind of is) but they are by and large beneficial creatures that can also be merged together into a single grub which can offer twice the benefit. You can only be infested by one worm at a time, though; when adding a new one, the old one must die, and it even leaves a corpse in your inventory. Flesh and hearts are basic restoratives, but offer a sort of risk/reward system where eating them while your HP/VT meters are full increases their cap by a relatively small amount. They can also be found rotten, which means eating them will give you indigestion. Torturers are devices which impact all of the foes in the room and are essential for crowd control. Bones are just that, but they also have unique effects that you can activate by gnawing on them (or tossing them). And yes, patterns are pads which activate an effect upon an entity stepping on top of them, which rarely results in anything good. The broad range of effects amongst items gives a fair amount of strategy to how you can use them to your benefit. For example, you could toss an ampoule generally used for curing blindness at a foe, which apparently was not made for use on Grotesques and inflicts blindness upon them instead. Or you can use a torturer to bring every enemy on the floor to the room you're in, and then you can use another torturer to turn them all into hearts and proceed to feast upon them. Mmmm.
Sometimes items will be unidentified, meaning you'll either have to find a way to identify them or simply test it through various means and take the risk of wasting a very helpful item or accidentally activating a less-than-helpful one.

As far as the actual dungeon-crawling goes, though - it's about as basic as it gets. You progress through the dungeon in a first-person perspective. You have a singular attack button which you use to swing your sword. You can walk forward and back, you can turn, and you can strafe. You don't move particularly fast. Otherwise, you can use items, and that's about it. There are no spells or special abilities or anything of the sort. You have no ranged attacks aside from your items. You level up in a fairly linear manner, with equipping better swords and coats having the largest impact on your overall survivability. As you're not especially tanky otherwise, you're going to need to be a much a trickster hero as you would anticipate a roguelike protagonist to be. Kite foes, toss items, set traps, run when things get hairy. Some enemy types can be maneuvered around once you understand their movement patterns, but just as many others are basically impossible to avoid taking damage from once they're in melee range. Some also impart some surprisingly nasty status effects, which makes facing them in direct combat highly inadvisable unless you have some degree of protection against them. And yeah, there are some situations where you'll be swarmed by an inescapable host of nasties or you'll have precious equipment deleted by traps, enemy tricks, or your own poor judgement. All of this will feel very familiar to roguelike veterans, but the more hands-on approach here feels very one-dimensional. As it stands, the slow movement speed and awkward controls make your trip through the Nerve Tower a fairly tedious experience, and your A button finger will definitely be a bit tired by the time you reach the bottom. There's a few other odd issues: As your foes are 2D horrors living in a 3D world, you can sometimes get blindsided by an enemy you couldn't see because they were living in your character's blind spots. A lot of enemies in the game are weirdly silent, given how cool the game's soundscape is otherwise, which means you'll be getting taken by surprise fairly frequently. It does add to the fear factor, I suppose, and you are given a subtle warning in the way of your heartbeat hastening when an enemy is nearby, so I can overlook it. What's a little less forgivable, though, is the seeming lack of concern for where your character appears and which way they're facing when you descend a floor. It's entirely possible for you to load in facing a wall, with baddies already taking a couple of free swipes while you attempt to turn around. It's a minor annoyance, but considering how difficult managing yourself on later floors can be, it's definitely worth mentioning.

Honestly, it's hard for me to complain too much because Baroque's flaws don't get to overstay their welcome. It's a short affair; one that is made much shorter assuming you're using a guide. As I mentioned before, completing runs or dying is sometimes required to progress, but once you know what to do there's really no barrier to getting further.
After you've reached a certain stage, the game effectively becomes a race to the bottom. To that end, avoidance is the smartest tactic you can employ. So I guess it really is a roguelike! There is room to develop your gear to a point that you can take most of your challengers head-on, so if you would rather play the grinding game, you have that option. In light of that, the biggest issue I have with Baroque really does come down to its relative lack of variety, both with regards to its gameplay and its locales. The scenery does change a bit as you get further along, but I wouldn't say the diversity is so great as to ensure you're oohing and ahhing with each run. If you're spending a lot of time trying to work things out, I could see you getting bored very quickly. Really, the fewer runs you can beat Baroque in, the better.

And that really is a shame, because blind is absolutely the way to go in on this game. Unraveling the mystery of how this twisted world came to be, and your ultimate purpose in it, is definitely Baroque's biggest strength. I absolutely adore a lot of the stylistic choices and the themes on display here. By the time I saw the end credits roll, I felt it was definitely something that would take up a corner of my brain for some time to come. It reminds me a lot of one of my favorite animated films, Tenshi no Tamago - go watch it if you haven't seen it - which centers on a beautiful, ruined world with dark religious undertones. There's a lot of commentary on humanity and our desires and motivators in life. There's also ton of supplemental material surrounding the creation of the game, much of which is documented on the Nerve Tower site, and it shows the creators were definitely passionate about this project. I highly recommend taking a look at it even if you don't necessarily intend to play the game.

All in all, Baroque definitely feels like an experiment to me - one that, while I consider it a success, isn't one I think will appeal to most. If you're the kind of person who likes to immerse themselves in strange worlds with little direction on how to unravel the threads in front of you, I think there's a solid chance you could fall in love with this game. If you're looking for a solid dungeon crawler, or roguelike, or hack and slash, I think you have plenty of better options. Give it a try, and use a guide (also provided on the Nerve Tower site) if fumbling around in the dark proves to be a bit too much. Don't tempt yourself into dispelling all of the darkness, though. There's a lot to love here. Just temper your expectations and know that I don't blame you if it's just not your cup of tea.

Hold Baroque inside yourself.

As one additional note: The PS1 version does technically have more content than the Saturn version, so if that sounds like something that appeals to you...

I feel like going on at length about this game would make it a disservice. Smarter people than I have talked at lenght about the beauty of its eerie aesthetics, its esoteric points of inspiration, and how its story resonates big time with queer and disabled themes.

Its almost a pioneer in rogue-lite mechanics too, and unlike a lot of its peer uses those mechanic to a point, and not just as a skinner box.

I had played, but not completed, the Wii remake before. But this blows it out of the water completely in terms of vibes and aesthetics.

I love this. This is what video games should be. Maybe a bit less hard tho (ngl, I kinda savescummed a bunch for my final run)

Holy fuck that was amazing! I ususally get really bored of rougelikes after a while due to me mostly finding their loop boring, but fuck I loved this one.

I loved the greater focus on the atompshere then the gameplay, the dunegon feels punishing and unwelcoming with monsters that as best want to steal your shit and worse just kill you. The music aswell just feels you with dread and god it's great.

Now the gameplay... I actually enjoyed it quite a lot, while controlling doesn't feel all that good, the game never failed to make think and plan out what items I should use next in order to the next floor.

Love this game to bits.

Edit:
Lol it turns out I got the "bad ending", dw I'll beat get the rest of the endings.

Insane, genuinely insane. The gameplay is a little clunky but other than that, I have genuinely 0 complaints with this beautifully crafted game. The atmosphere, enemies, ambience, everything I adore and love. Each playthrough is entirely unique and the way the story is told is in a way that no other game past or present has done. I don't even like roguelikes, or roguelites, whatever the hell you wanna call it. Most games in that genre are not my thing with how "endlessness" is the main appeal. This game has the perfect length where you can beat in in either 4 hours or 12 depending on what the game throws at you and especially luck. First of all, the game has a great and thoroughly explained tutorial dungeon you can return to to get items and prepare for the actual main dungeon. It teaches you the basics and even some of the deeper mechanics, seriously great. Enemy designs are all varied and each feature their very own gimmick or attack, super memorable and unsettling to look at. With their over the top designs or really indiscernible making them so disgusting to be near. As much as I love this game I don't want to recommend it to people who aren't familiar with first-person dungeon crawling, couple that with this game's tough difficulty, it's a very hard sell.. but if you keep an open mind you will find one of the most profound experiences ever made. So many games and concepts try to copy the style of this game with it's "aesthetic", the strange 2D character sprites, the heavily unwelcoming atmosphere and settings, it's truly a head of it's time on how it looks. Overall, a one of a kind game that will never be made again and an instant favorite.

Unfortunately never officially released outside Japan, Baroque absolutely deserves to be considered a cult classic due to the extremely innovative perspective it offered in terms of narrative structure encased in game mechanics, elements that can occasionally be found even today in the roguelite field, but still manage to come across as unique: launching the game we are thrown into a distorted, post-apocalyptic world inhabited by surreal-looking creatures and drenched in a bleak and intensely surreal atmosphere, we are plunged into an enigmatic quest caught between reality and simulation, in which annihilation and rebirth go side by side, in an endless cycle of creation and destruction of this lost world that we are eventually destined to break.
Everything really comes together beautifully, both in terms of gameplay between roguelite, rpg, dungeon crawler and survival horror elements (yikes), and in terms of aesthetic and narrative coherence with horror inspirations, science fiction, mystical themes brought together in an obscure existentialist plot.
It is truly a masterpiece that knows how to fascinate and keep you glued to the controller, where each run turns out completely different from the others.

Su respuesta a la narrativa clásica de videojuego es la repetición con pequeñas variaciones. Es hasta visionario al coger Rogue y añadirle una colección de personajes depresivos y una trama intermitente. El problema: la base de mazmorreo se siente estirada ya desde las primeras partidas, como para aguantar esta repetición. Y no por falta de buenas ideas, que de eso desborda el juego, sino por falta de garra. Con la abundancia de recursos y su exigencia que no va más allá de darle un uso razonable a estos, lo raro es no verte al final de la torre en cada partida. Al no conseguir así transmitir el tormento interno que explicita su texto, nos queda solo el papel del ejecutor.

En la contínua repetición de "purificar" seres corrompidos, Baroque refleja los sentimientos de autoflagelación y tendencias suicidas de la gente que ha sobrevivido a un trauma, que siente que solo merece sufrimiento a pesar de ser las víctimas. Nosotros, como protagonistas, les ofrecemos el fin a su miseria a cambio de beneficio propio. En una conclusión enrevesada de más (con revelaciones de última hora, fusiones entre personajes y planes malvados de suplantar a Dios) Baroque concluye que la posibilidad de curar estos martirios es una falsa ilusión y hay que aceptarlos como parte de uno para poder vivir en paz. Dependerá de cada uno decidir si esta conclusión justifica el camino de miseria que nos ha llevado hasta ahí.

You ever play something so ahead of its time that you could trick someone into believing that it just came out yesterday?

Seriously, what the fuck? 1998? I know Dungeon Hack existed for half a decade before this, and Wizardry a decade before that, but this feels advanced. Like, this might just be me speaking from ignorance, having not played the fifteen years of first-person dungeon crawlers building up to this, but there's something about the entire design philosophy of this that seems modern. Roguelikes weren't new at the time — you know, what with Rogue existing — nor were real-time blobbers, but combining them into one entity that encourages multiple playthroughs to peel back an obfuscated story is something that I last saw in The Binding of Isaac and in precisely zero games before that.

This game is impossibly cool. Let this be the most Hot Topic thing I ever say, but there's something about these hellish industrial land-and-soundscapes that make me feel a sense of belonging. Having a world that's in such an obvious, complete state of disrepair that you can't do much besides band together is a welcome reprieve from our world where everything is awful but the collective populace pretends as though it's fine. Comfort in discomfort; the end-times as impetus to make what's left over better. Of course, that isn't going to stop opportunists like Coffin Man from picking your corpse for loot, but it's not like he's gonna kill you for it, either.

It's a difficult title to discuss, and that's mostly due to how reliant it is on being experienced. This is probably a bit of a nothing statement, given that everything is designed to be experienced by someone, but the actual act of attempting to engage with the game feels more like "the gameplay" than its actual mechanics. Attempting to define this by putting it in neat boxes of clearing rooms and slashing up monsters and leveling up does a disservice to the whole. You cannot break this down into its parts without losing the magic that binds them all together.

I mentioned in my Last Call BBS review that I have a hard time with puzzle-solving because I can't really figure out how to learn how to solve them. With that said, though, brushing through Baroque's cryptic design came naturally to me. It's a game not just of learning, but of risk-management. You learn that Bones are items that can be thrown or consumed to deal enemies and apply buffs, respectively, but what do you do when you find an unidentified Bone on the floor? Do you gnaw on it and risk hurting yourself, or do you toss it at the enemy and risk giving them total invulnerability? When you find a new weapon, do you equip it right away to identify it, or do you avoid doing so because it might have an "adhesive" that makes it impossible to take off? These are basic tenets of Rogue games, but are they really different to puzzles in any meaningful way? You're meant to use your reasoning to figure out what the best course of action should be, and then following that path. Is that distinct from puzzle-solving?

I suppose what makes Baroque work for me is that there's never a binary right or wrong answer. There are good answers, and bad answers, but never right or wrong. Gnawing on a damaging bone will hurt you, but only for 10/20 HP (you start with 99). Stepping on a status pad might afflict you with Lust or Darkness, but only for a minute or two. The game can be harsh, but never unfair. You can never make a single mistake that'll cost you the run; you have to make several mistakes in sequence before you're in danger. I like not being judged completely on a scale of "you did it/you didn't do it". You can succeed here in a lot of different ways, but it's just that some ways are more efficient than others.

Immaculate vibes. It's a wonder that this got a translation nearly 25 years after it released.

I started this game after a friend's recommendation, and very quickly realized it followed the template of a Mystery Dungeon game while doing something completely different and unique with the narrative and atmosphere. I was so engrossed that I wouldn't stop to take screenshots, even though I wanted them to record my memories of playing it and to share it with friends so they can see them and maybe want to play it as well.

The multiple contextual uses for near any item lets you turn most bad situations around, and that level of emergent gameplay is something I haven't seen even on proper MDs. I appreciate how the game trusts the player and doesn't overexplain mechanics, not robbing me of those discoveries.

It's a bummer that the game's biggest moments (the beginning, reaching the bottom of the tower for the first time, and the ending) are largely the same visually (the same CG repeated a number of times from different angles and in each situation with less and less VFX obscuring it, with text on top). There's a different meaning each time but I still wish there was something else for the ending, maybe there wasn't enough budget to produce another FMV and that's why they reused that one so much (or even a longer one, considering you watch it about 10 times in the ending because it's so short).

The game continuing to escalate the narrative every few floors in the last run was very cool and made me not want to stop playing it until I was through it, but then it put me through ~10 floors of pure gameplay with more, and more difficult, monsters as a final challenge, with no NPCs to talk to, which was grueling as well. But I'll grant it that I was storming through the first floors after having seen them before, thinking I knew everything that was in the tower and no longer intimidated by it. But the second I started seeing new floors and new enemies all that affliction came back, which got a laugh out of me.

It was an incredibly interesting game, and I'm very glad I got to play it.

I honestly cannot put into words what itch this game scratched - I've never played anything quite like it and, like a few other people said, I finished this game in two long bursts because I just couldn't possibly put it down. That time was full of "just one more floor," as "one more floor" turned into finishing the run, then into "just one more run", and the cycle repeats. The action is complex yet rewarding, with each enemy having a particular moveset that you can learn - it feels incredible weaving around and avoiding all damage because you've learned how the Grotesques move and attack, manipulating enemies into killing each other, and using these skills (and a great deal of luck) to finally make it to the bottom for the first time.

Plot is obtuse, progressing based on vaguely defined puzzles, experimentation, and death; you never quite know what's going on, but that mystery adds to the barren, dingy, and dark atmosphere.

Baroque is artistic in its approach to game design and achieves an immensely dreadful atmosphere by combining its bleak aesthetics with simple but arduous gameplay. The objective is simple: make it to the bottom of the tower, but your success can be largely dependent on your luck with random items. You learn bits and pieces about the world through context rather than explanation, which is an approach to storytelling that I've always appreciated. Masaharu Iwata's grim sound arrangements are the perfect backdrop for this experience, and contribute so much to the pure isolation I feel while playing. I felt similar emotions while watching the anime series "Texhnolyze" years ago, but that story has much more of a concern for society than I can say for Baroque. However, this is the kind of game that different people will read in different ways. There are definitely allusions to problems of human civilization, but I find that Baroque is more concerned with understanding Being and the self. This isn't the sort of media I draw concrete conclusions from; I just find tremendous enjoyment in playing it repeatedly while considering any or all of the pieces of this incredible composition.