Very interesting horror, edutainment, point-and-click adventure game. You wander around the old capital encountering local lords, priests, peasants, samurai, demons, ghosts, and so on and on.
It pretty nicely demonstrates the religious syncretism of Japan. You'll be killed by a Yokai and then be reincarnated. In this you can see the representation of traditional superstitions still observed while Buddhist ideas were becoming more popular in the time period Cosmology is set in. The game even walks you through the procedure of the time for prayer at a Buddhist temple. There is a thorough glossary of terms relating to landmarks, spirituality, superstitions, and the relevant history. If you're interested in these topics, you could spent a lot of time just reading glossary entries.
As for the horror elements, the overall atmosphere is unsettling. Characters are visually reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's paper cut-out animations from the various Monty Python shows and films, and a lot of the humans and demons are very grotesque. You encounter demons ripping people apart. A local lord orders a beheading. Many random acts of violence all around. For the last couple of years I have returned to this game around Halloween to poke around, it fits the mood of October very well.
Cosmology of Kyoto doesn't run well on modern hardware, unfortunately. Menu options are invisible, making interacting with items and NPCs trial and error for where to put your cursor and click.
It pretty nicely demonstrates the religious syncretism of Japan. You'll be killed by a Yokai and then be reincarnated. In this you can see the representation of traditional superstitions still observed while Buddhist ideas were becoming more popular in the time period Cosmology is set in. The game even walks you through the procedure of the time for prayer at a Buddhist temple. There is a thorough glossary of terms relating to landmarks, spirituality, superstitions, and the relevant history. If you're interested in these topics, you could spent a lot of time just reading glossary entries.
As for the horror elements, the overall atmosphere is unsettling. Characters are visually reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's paper cut-out animations from the various Monty Python shows and films, and a lot of the humans and demons are very grotesque. You encounter demons ripping people apart. A local lord orders a beheading. Many random acts of violence all around. For the last couple of years I have returned to this game around Halloween to poke around, it fits the mood of October very well.
Cosmology of Kyoto doesn't run well on modern hardware, unfortunately. Menu options are invisible, making interacting with items and NPCs trial and error for where to put your cursor and click.
Undoubtedly an interesting game, especially for the time, but not exactly what I was expecting going through. The surreal and more outwardly superstitious aspects were really intriguing and made me keep going, but the rest didn't grab me as much; it felt more like an abstract history lesson. Not that that's a bad thing, mind, but it didn't compel me to push through the dated playstyle and bugs that my copy had. If a die-hard fan of this game sees this, if there's any way to play this without game-ruining bugs (that of the blank text boxes), please let me know. I want to like this more, but from what I can find, it's just pretty good.