“I no longer believe that my older brother was sacrificed. That is not my sin. Repetition is my sin.”

The world of Baroque is a complex, multi-faceted one. Its atmosphere is uniquely oppressive, dismal, unsettling, and beautiful. The story often develops away from the eyes of the player, leaving the aftermath to be unknowingly stumbled upon. Although there are specific events that need to happen to finish the game, the progression feels very “natural” in how it occurs, with not a lot of explicit guidance given to the player. You're thrown confusedly into the world without information and immediately forced to fend for yourself, only the depths of the unknown Nerve Tower as a goal guiding you forward. Unlike other games with similarly cryptic settings, the game’s mechanics are made pretty clear while allowing room for experiment and strategy. Almost all of the dialogue from the present few nonviolent characters contains some kind of hint for progression or survival. I enjoyed playing through the game with some paper notes I took on my discoveries by my side.

The post-apocalyptic world surrounding the Nerve Tower is all but desolate. Watching the Distorted Ones be completely consumed by their grief, the wasteland –always framed by the Nerve Tower on the horizon– begins to feel more and more barren. Venturing into the depths of the Nerve Tower on the other hand is an alienating experience. Within its darkness works a seemingly infinite array of strange machines, and through gashes in the rusting walls you can faintly hear the humming inner workings of this distorted world. Around every corner lurks something unknown and hostile. The ambient soundtrack is punctuated by the beating of the Protagonist's heart, the inescapable source of his regret. If you’ve read this far and haven’t played the game yourself (get outta here!), I don’t think any description I could write could encapsulate experiencing it for oneself.

Baroque is a game about repetition. You drag yourself through the same decrepit scenery, cut down the same grotesques, drive a bullet through the chest of the world’s unstable god over and over again, all the while listening to the same metallic mantra for hours upon hours. For as engaging as the game systems are, it often feels like a self-inflicted punishment. Like somehow you’ll atone for the sin of being alive by hurting yourself –by endlessly and knowingly sending yourself to die.

In the world of Baroque, the Protagonist has the special ability to purify –to harm, to eradicate. While the player is (pretty aggressively) taught by the Archangel that this is the only meaningful course of action to take in order to restore the world and absolve of their sin, in truth the Protagonist can only free himself from his eternal punishment by his own will, and by his own choice accept impurity, to embrace grief and become something greater than it. Perhaps the game itself explains it best: “Trying to purify the world was, in itself, a distorted delusion. So, what do we do then? Entwine with the distortion without turning away.”

The genius thing about the setting is that the “real” post-fusion world is the exact same as the twisted, corrupt world the Archangel so fervently wishes to destroy. The game’s somewhat indeterminate conclusion asks both the Protagonist and the player to reevaluate their struggle. If you want, you can comfortably return to the same loop of violence, trying in vain to erase the immutable. In fact, there's an even harder bonus dungeon available where +99 equipment is almost a requirement.

This also served as a conclusion that made me think about why I play video games in the first place. Why do I sink hours to years of my time into these intangible activities with nothing to show for it but a number rising in the corner of a display? Why as a lover of video games do I so eagerly return to the hostile depths of the Nerve Tower? Well, I don’t know if I could ever fully answer those questions, but I suppose it’s my baroque –the ephemera I cling to that makes life bearable. I latch onto the fantasy of these virtual worlds that are controlled and predictable, worlds where pure perfection isn't just a delusion.

There’s so much more I could probably elaborate on regarding Baroque’s themes, but again I think that it is best understood through coming to one’s own conclusions. These are my thoughts from immediately after finishing the game, but I'm sure it can be read in a multitude of ways I haven't touched on.

Also, there’s a lot of interesting supplementary material related to the game’s development, including lore tidbits not found in game, and interviews with the game’s artists and developers about how it was created. You can read much of it on this fansite. To me the biggest takeaway is how much love director Kazunari Yonemitsu put into the game, especially his love for video games (e.g. Rogue, Kowloon's Gate, Torneko no Daibouken) and other media.

Perhaps the elephant in the room that I have yet to address is that for lack of better words the game is a little janky. Particularly, the stiff Saturn/PS1 early 3D movement takes some getting used to. At the time of writing, this game is some 24 years old and certainly shows its age in some respects. However I think that this contributes to my previously mentioned point about Baroque's message as not only a message to the player, but a message to the video game loving player, encoded in the gameplay itself, partially constructed as a tribute to monumental titles of the past.

In conclusion(?) I am fascinated by this game. I love it like a treasured friend and am equally terrified of what it tells me about myself.