Did one run so far and received the first ending (?) and honestly enjoyed it quite a bit, very insteresting characters and world, one of those games that makes you want to watch a youtube analysis video to figure out what's going on, very cool atmosphere and soundtrack
Not typically a Roguelike guy but the rougelike mechanics in this game are simple enough for me to enjoy, gameplay is a but too simple hence why I'm taking a bit of a break, wish there was more weapon/level/enemy variety
Going to go for the rest of the endings and update my review accordingly but so far a 7/10
Not typically a Roguelike guy but the rougelike mechanics in this game are simple enough for me to enjoy, gameplay is a but too simple hence why I'm taking a bit of a break, wish there was more weapon/level/enemy variety
Going to go for the rest of the endings and update my review accordingly but so far a 7/10
inferior to the original
Que?
I had nightmares about this game so much.
great game, unfortunate remake
Game has so many issues but my strange affinity for it never dies & I keep coming back. Would love to play the original Sega Saturn version someday
I had never played a roguelike game before Hades (more like, had any interested or finished one), so after it and how much I enjoyed it, I wanted to give one a try.
I love wii games so after some research I decided to give Baroque a try.
I am still not quite sure if I regret it or not.
Gameplay wise, Baroque gets boring really fast. As most wii games it’s slow and clunky and repetitive. It’s a lot of walking through randomized levels and a lot of item managing. The fighting is slow and not really challenging, you mostly worry about being underleveled or being outnumbered in a small room, and at some point the only thing on your mind is in which level you are so you can keep track of what NPCs you can find on that floor.
What kept me going, though, was how much the entire mood of the game was so…perfect for it. Baroque is set in a clearly post apocalyptic world, all of it distorted and off putting. The outside of the tower consists of just a small number of NPCs who don’t really tell you much, but I was so interested on what little they had to say about the world and how they live in it and how it got to this point. It took me at least 4 runs of the tower to understand one of the NPCs was not weird, but just a mind reader and was just telling me what my character was thinking, and then it all started making sense.
A bunch of cutscenes I did not understand bit by bit started making more and more sense the more I went into the neuro tower. The themes it treats are very interesting to me and the overall mysterious and moody vibe it gives made me really enjoy the game, despite it being not very good to play.
It’s quite a confusing game. I don’t recommend playing it without a guide. There are a lot of plot bits you will miss and you will not understand the game if you don’t follow one because most of it is just not very…intuitive.
It’s a game with many, many flaws and I can’t say I truly enjoyed playing it, but I also can’t say I hated it because I really enjoyed the plot as confusing as it was to fully understand.
I love wii games so after some research I decided to give Baroque a try.
I am still not quite sure if I regret it or not.
Gameplay wise, Baroque gets boring really fast. As most wii games it’s slow and clunky and repetitive. It’s a lot of walking through randomized levels and a lot of item managing. The fighting is slow and not really challenging, you mostly worry about being underleveled or being outnumbered in a small room, and at some point the only thing on your mind is in which level you are so you can keep track of what NPCs you can find on that floor.
What kept me going, though, was how much the entire mood of the game was so…perfect for it. Baroque is set in a clearly post apocalyptic world, all of it distorted and off putting. The outside of the tower consists of just a small number of NPCs who don’t really tell you much, but I was so interested on what little they had to say about the world and how they live in it and how it got to this point. It took me at least 4 runs of the tower to understand one of the NPCs was not weird, but just a mind reader and was just telling me what my character was thinking, and then it all started making sense.
A bunch of cutscenes I did not understand bit by bit started making more and more sense the more I went into the neuro tower. The themes it treats are very interesting to me and the overall mysterious and moody vibe it gives made me really enjoy the game, despite it being not very good to play.
It’s quite a confusing game. I don’t recommend playing it without a guide. There are a lot of plot bits you will miss and you will not understand the game if you don’t follow one because most of it is just not very…intuitive.
It’s a game with many, many flaws and I can’t say I truly enjoyed playing it, but I also can’t say I hated it because I really enjoyed the plot as confusing as it was to fully understand.
yoko taro take some notes
A peculiar roguelike game about a young boy sent out to purify a crazed god in a distorted, post-apocalyptic world. This is a remake of a Japanese Sega Saturn title of the same name released in 1998 ...and that's probably explanation enough for the odd nature of the game.
It's interesting visiting a late 2000's roguelike after playing more recent, critically acclaimed takes on the genre like Hades and Slay the Spire. Baroque leans more into the harsh roots of the genre with its core structure but story progression and some item-related features fortunately do carry over between runs. There's also a huge database that tracks every enemy you encounter, item that you log etc. that can be useful.
Baroque's gameplay mostly consists of exploring randomly generated floors, sluggishly swinging your sword and picking up strange items that may explode once used. There's a fun aura of mystery and sense of discovery to the first half-dozen runs or so but sadly the archaic game mechanics and bafflingly repetitive first floors start to test any sane player's patience after a while. There are clear game logic rules set in place for sure but a lot of times you'll feel cheated by those very rules when later enemies are e.g. considerably faster than you or are able to do continuous, paralyzing attacks.
The plot of Baroque is quite unique and somber and the religious themes do actually serve a purpose beyond aesthetics which is nice. The story can be very obscure, however, and that's why every mid-run cutscene, unique NPC encounter or the tiniest bit of plot exposition feels like a small victory every time. It's a shame that the game eventually starts to feel like a chore to play instead of mixing things up to maintain a healthy sense of intrigue towards the overaching narrative mystery. Quite a bit of the story stuff, as well as the character design, felt very FromSoftware-esque, a lot of strange troubled people and eerie creatures to be found throughout the floors.
Not entirely sure what to make of this game... my thoughts on it are just as clouded as its plot. It is undeniably a fascinating game with an identity of its own which is more than you can say for a lot of other games but there's an abundance of frustrating flaws as well. If you're looking for a weird RPG-adjacent title on the PS2/Wii then check this out I guess, just be aware of those aforementioned caveats. Let's at least end the review on a positive note: the music is dope and the intro video is sublime.
It's interesting visiting a late 2000's roguelike after playing more recent, critically acclaimed takes on the genre like Hades and Slay the Spire. Baroque leans more into the harsh roots of the genre with its core structure but story progression and some item-related features fortunately do carry over between runs. There's also a huge database that tracks every enemy you encounter, item that you log etc. that can be useful.
Baroque's gameplay mostly consists of exploring randomly generated floors, sluggishly swinging your sword and picking up strange items that may explode once used. There's a fun aura of mystery and sense of discovery to the first half-dozen runs or so but sadly the archaic game mechanics and bafflingly repetitive first floors start to test any sane player's patience after a while. There are clear game logic rules set in place for sure but a lot of times you'll feel cheated by those very rules when later enemies are e.g. considerably faster than you or are able to do continuous, paralyzing attacks.
The plot of Baroque is quite unique and somber and the religious themes do actually serve a purpose beyond aesthetics which is nice. The story can be very obscure, however, and that's why every mid-run cutscene, unique NPC encounter or the tiniest bit of plot exposition feels like a small victory every time. It's a shame that the game eventually starts to feel like a chore to play instead of mixing things up to maintain a healthy sense of intrigue towards the overaching narrative mystery. Quite a bit of the story stuff, as well as the character design, felt very FromSoftware-esque, a lot of strange troubled people and eerie creatures to be found throughout the floors.
Not entirely sure what to make of this game... my thoughts on it are just as clouded as its plot. It is undeniably a fascinating game with an identity of its own which is more than you can say for a lot of other games but there's an abundance of frustrating flaws as well. If you're looking for a weird RPG-adjacent title on the PS2/Wii then check this out I guess, just be aware of those aforementioned caveats. Let's at least end the review on a positive note: the music is dope and the intro video is sublime.
não entendi nada, jogo bom
great aesthetic on the original. shitty anime style on the remake. bad gameplay regardless though
This is a remake of the Saturn/PSX original, and it's one of the weirdest remakes I've seen be done.
Gameplay is switched from 1st to 3rd person, areas are expanded and take way longer to go through, and fighting enemies with the bad attack animations is ugly, boring, and frustrating. Just about everything here is worse.
On top of that, the ambient noise soundtrack is replaced with mindnumbing techno loops that I had to mute after the second run.
But let's talk about the elephant in the room. The style change.
It goes for a different aesthetic, from "weird anime" to "generic anime".
Imagine waking up to find all Giger paintings look like Disney princesses.
Does it "miss the point"? Yeah, it's no longer scary.
Is it "completely different"? Kind of.
Does it "ruin the story?" No, because it's the same. It just has anime-er people tell it.
Changing "text on a black screen" to a proper cutscene just shows how bad it was in the first place, although the clunky animation certainly doesn't help.
The mystique from a lot of moments is removed, and the story is exposed as what it really is: a boring, messy, but slightly interesting ordeal.
The vibes are gone, the atmosphere is gone, and the fun-ish gameplay loop is gone, and those were the only redeeming things about the original.
So what's left?
Nothing but the story, being told properly.
And it still sucks.
Gameplay is switched from 1st to 3rd person, areas are expanded and take way longer to go through, and fighting enemies with the bad attack animations is ugly, boring, and frustrating. Just about everything here is worse.
On top of that, the ambient noise soundtrack is replaced with mindnumbing techno loops that I had to mute after the second run.
But let's talk about the elephant in the room. The style change.
It goes for a different aesthetic, from "weird anime" to "generic anime".
Imagine waking up to find all Giger paintings look like Disney princesses.
Does it "miss the point"? Yeah, it's no longer scary.
Is it "completely different"? Kind of.
Does it "ruin the story?" No, because it's the same. It just has anime-er people tell it.
Changing "text on a black screen" to a proper cutscene just shows how bad it was in the first place, although the clunky animation certainly doesn't help.
The mystique from a lot of moments is removed, and the story is exposed as what it really is: a boring, messy, but slightly interesting ordeal.
The vibes are gone, the atmosphere is gone, and the fun-ish gameplay loop is gone, and those were the only redeeming things about the original.
So what's left?
Nothing but the story, being told properly.
And it still sucks.
Horrível.
This is a complete bastardization of the original.
If was not for the clunky and poor combat system this game would be 1000x better.
This game has an incredible presentation and art direction. The aesthetic os unique in a dark and horrendous way. Thanks to that every character has such interesting designs that follow interesting backstories.
Its a dungeon crawling with a twist, dying is what makes the story progress. With items you found on the dungeon you can make npc characters story progress and understand the world way better.
In conclusion, this game fails truly on the most important thing a game has, the Gameplay.
This game has an incredible presentation and art direction. The aesthetic os unique in a dark and horrendous way. Thanks to that every character has such interesting designs that follow interesting backstories.
Its a dungeon crawling with a twist, dying is what makes the story progress. With items you found on the dungeon you can make npc characters story progress and understand the world way better.
In conclusion, this game fails truly on the most important thing a game has, the Gameplay.
Tried this one just to see how the rest of the world initially got to experience Baroque and.... not as good. Funnily enough, the game one of the rawest openings in any video game I've ever seen but the gameplay is neutered along with the atmosphere. It takes an anime approach to human characters and instead of a first person view it's third person which totally removes the horror and original atmosphere entirely. Enemies went from looking grotesque and unnerving to goofy and really stupid. They don't translate well in 3D, at least in this game. They are also totally braindead man, the original was a damn hard game while this one is the polar opposite. It's weird to see this game like this after playing the masterpiece that was the original. It plays better mechanically but that's about it.
Baroque is Sting Entertainment's PS2 remake of their 1998 Sega Saturn title, that wed the classic tension of roguelike action-RPGs with sci-fi horror. This version employs full directional movement (replacing the old tank controls) as well as a third-person camera, but surprisingly retains certain parts of the original, such as its now-optional first-person view and a somewhat abstruse progression (tower completions, deaths or NPC-related quests unlock new floors and advance the storyline, while bits of the protagonist's past are revealed during most runs). Equipped with a new artstyle, its gloomy atmosphere, post-apocalyptic setting, bizarre mobs and moments of levity suddenly evokes modern SMT, and - despite (or precisely because of) its rigid combat, this could be mistaken for a long lost collab between Atlus & Mystery Dungeon-era Chunsoft. Although it suffers from the genre's usual problems - mainly an overdependence on RNG and repetition, they definitely stand out from the crowd with their obscure cutscenes and manic characters.
I opened a box and exploded
play the original!
Este pequeno vídeo tocou em meu cérebro durante todo o tempo que passei jogando esta magnífica obra. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axGx3W9nsBM
Mas na real mesmo? Jogo interessantíssimo. É daqueles jogos tipo Nier e Dragon's Dogma (ou, no caso, Nier e Dragon's Dogma que seriam jogos tipo Baroque) que possuem dezenas de horas de gameplay após os créditos, que escondem o true ending e tudo mais. Finalizei o objetivo principal, mas estou sem paciência para fazer todo o conteúdo do post-game no momento, então deixarei o jogo descansando por tempo indefinido antes de eu voltar para ele com sede e fome de fazer tudo (ou quase tudo) que há para ser feito nele -- ou, talvez, eu nem volte. Vida de adulto e etc...
Independentemente de eu voltar futuramente ou não, foi o suficiente para o jogo me cativar, tanto do ponto de vista do gameplay quanto da lore. Uma maravilha.
Mas na real mesmo? Jogo interessantíssimo. É daqueles jogos tipo Nier e Dragon's Dogma (ou, no caso, Nier e Dragon's Dogma que seriam jogos tipo Baroque) que possuem dezenas de horas de gameplay após os créditos, que escondem o true ending e tudo mais. Finalizei o objetivo principal, mas estou sem paciência para fazer todo o conteúdo do post-game no momento, então deixarei o jogo descansando por tempo indefinido antes de eu voltar para ele com sede e fome de fazer tudo (ou quase tudo) que há para ser feito nele -- ou, talvez, eu nem volte. Vida de adulto e etc...
Independentemente de eu voltar futuramente ou não, foi o suficiente para o jogo me cativar, tanto do ponto de vista do gameplay quanto da lore. Uma maravilha.
Imaginad jugar al Pokémon Mundo Misterioso pero a cada paso que das hay dos señores metiéndote palillos por debajo de las uñas a martillazos. Bueno, Baroque no es tan agradable pero se le acerca