There's an in-game bookstore in The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa which predictably sells books which Ringo can read. They all have slightly parodic, possibly copyright dodging titles but are all clearly based on existing words of literature e.g Odysseus - > Ulysses, Brothers -> Brothers Karamazov etc.

Reading each of them involves figuring out the slightly obtuse method of finding a bench and using the right shoulder button and letting the slow progress bar fill up. If you've read the speed reading books in the school library you can speed the process up but it will take a significant amount of ingame time to read through the longer novels like Ulysses and Anna Karenina. There is basically 0 mechanical benefit in doing so, negative, if you factor in opportunity cost. Well, there is one female friend of Ringo's who has unique dialogue if you've read any of the russian novels but other than that (and the achievement for reading them all I suppose) like in real life you basically have to read for shock horror its own sake.

It is perhaps silly, but The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa's particular roleplaying, simulation charm had such a grip on me on replay that I sat on a bench in the park on a sunday and would periodically pause reading The Brothers Karamazov to light up a cigarette and continue where I left of, then stopping to put it out. I can't even really put my finger on why, perhaps its because for all the maturity of the subject matter and perceived adult-ness (which is even addressed in one of the conversations with Ringo's bookworm friend declaring that Adults didnt watch anime) its the kind of thing that taps into that dormant desire to make up stories of our toys of childhood; when play and learning went hand in hand.

Its also because smoking in a game is as close as I'll hopefully ever get to it IRL after giving it up a few years ago. Reading whilst smoking brings a nostalgia for one of the worst years of my life when I was 18 and had just started university in a different country.

I don't smoke anymore, but I've been getting back into reading. Reading Rumble Fish recently it was hard not to notice the influence in Ringo's story, a tale of a troubled teen gang leader's deep existential emptiness and misplaced idealism about the "rules" of chivalry supposedly involved. Even the scene in RI of Goro staring off into the lit up city across the river wondering if there's anything greater out there, a naïve hope of escaping the ennui of their hometown into a mythical "other place" smacks of a particular chapter in Rumble Fish; seemingly the only time at which the main character is comfortable is when drunk and surrounded by the pretty lights and party atmosphere of the city, shortly before being mugged.

I'm currently reading through Winesburg Ohio, I suppose I could have waited until i read through all of the books to come back and replay Ringo and do some kind of overlong comparative analysis of the influences, but I can't be assed right now. Maybe I will do that in the future. In replaying Ringo there was the unfortunate realization that the combat is kinda shit compared to Fading Afternoon and a few bugs got a bit annoying, as well as the confirmation that the pacing of the final few weeks was as weird as I remembered it, but everything else about the game was stellar, and I think I enjoyed it even more than last time. Ringo is a bit like Paprika and other works I love to revisit in that it feels like you're finding something new every time. For as obtuse and even abrasive as the design philosphy of Yeo's games can be, they are equally mesmerising.

For example, I discovered upon replay that you can squat to recover health. I also learned that story events do not trigger if you have your gang with you, which is both useful in setting the terms of the progression but thematically appropriate: Ringo's friends are coming apart, him seemingly the last one to realize this, and his various activities calling upon him to be alone and not keeping the gang together accelerates the process. That ending still hits fucking hard man. God. Y'know what? Fuck it, for all its faults, this is a 5 star game for me now. I don't think it will be most people's cup of tea but I humbly ask for everyone to play it at some point, even if just for a few hours

Picked up this game when it came out on a whim, and it took me around three and a half years to stop getting filtered by the mechanics - But when I did I found something truly special. The mechanics are still kinda ass but their obfuscation and how you have to make your own little schedules and keep track of stuff work wonders for immersion, and definitely strengthen the idea of how you spend your time the game goes for.

Play it if you want something poignant and unique. It'll take a bit of getting used to, but it's worth it long term.

Es increíble como un juego que estuve a punto de quitar a los 15 minutos de empezarlo me haya podido acabar gustando tanto.

Con apariencia de beat'em up, motivo por el que lo compré (spoiler: no tiene apenas nada de ese género) se esconde un ensayo sobre la vida desde el punto de vista de su desarrollador, yeo. Un juego en el que puedes hacer muchas cosas que tienen un impacto en el prota, Ringo, pero no en el jugador, y cuyo fuerte es el avance en las relaciones del propio Ringo y sus amigos, chavales de 16-17 años que por algún motivo tienen conversaciones filosóficas que parecerían ultra maduras hasta para personas en su treintena (el guion y los diálogos son una cosa maravillosa, hasta el punto de querer repetir las mismas actividades una y otra vez simplemente por ver qué charla nueva te vas a encontrar). Con una jugabilidad que no es nada del otro mundo, y a la vez bastante críptica, los diferentes eventos con cinemáticas que vas viendo, van en ascenso, y culminan en un final muy existencialista y potentísimo y que para mí justifica el tiempo invertido, no es para todo el mundo, es un hit or miss de manual, pero como primera experiencia en una obra de este tipo solo puedo decir que es un sobresaliente de los pies a la cabeza. Ah, y las referencias a libros y películas, así como la banda sonora, son exquisitas, me he quedado con ganas de jugar las otras dos propuestas de yeo, algo que haré pronto seguramente.

Top tier track: Prehistory theme

Time is slipping away. You have made decisions that have you behind the 8 ball and with both your youth and the school closing in, what will you do? This game challenges you to bristle at every missed connection, every missed moment and what remaining opportunities are for you. I lost time to this game and I mean that. I invested time but this game often has you just watching your character progress, doing the menial task, it makes you think about how you use your own time. Your own time as a gamer is fleeting and the reflective nature of this game gets you to ponder what’s going on in your own life.
It does that through true emergent gameplay . The mechanics are barely told to you, progress is unclear. You need to read around to find the school schedule. You need to study the movement of your peer group. You need to create routines. There is no map, so you have to deepen your own relationship with the area to really feel like you are understanding. You can invest in books or a tv. You can invest in boxing or judo. You can skip classes to pick up a job or study . The thing is that how you get to these choices or how they occur feel idiosyncratic. You have to do things in certain ways to get these to happen. You have to happen upon chance encounters, this is a real world.
They take this into the brawling segments . There is a moment that I realized that I had a truce with a gang only because I never thought to fight them before. I hadn’t realized that starting a fight with them would cause a ruckus. There was a threat , a warning, a whole new story cutscene days later in my play after I started a random fight with them . This occurred strictly because I accidentally started a fight somewhere I never did before. It made me realize interactions were so subtle to convey connections. The gang members used to light my lighter . I didn’t think of that but it makes sense that they were peers, even if the game wouldn't tell you that explicitly.
That is how the stories unfold. You never know when the intermissions show up and derail your schedule. It feels like real human development. You lose dialogue options because of certain events, days later people ask about what happens. You feel heartened by what’s happening in your friends life. The moment I got into Kens house after the big incident that got him to stop boxing made me erupt in excitement. I made decisions in gameplay that were unneeded strictly because I was moved emotionally or wanted to see how things progressed. The Yuna conversations were the reason I invested so much in literature.
This game tells you nothing though. And a lot is waiting and watching time pass. The cryptic nature is a boon a weakness. It can feel like marvelous emergent design but sometimes a game that doesn’t want you to do anything . It’s thoroughly refreshing and accentuates wonderful writing with a poignant ending. I came for a brawler and mechanically it’s solid enough with options that open up based on your choices but this is a life sim , and if you want to see freedom in design and trusting that you can save the end of high school as a troubled gang leader? This will teach you about design and time. (Look up something very briefly, like 5 minutes for some basic mechanics, just to set sail and never look up anything again, it is vague enough that I must say that).

If Kenka Banchou do a banchou life sim using the cool factor (supposing so, since the only with english translation is like this), The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa uses everything more depressive about them. Sure, you have cool stuff happening but is just a small time fantasy, the reality comes crushing right after.

Everything is made to reflex Ringo and his friends and even the player too. If Shenmue suggests things and made you think something, The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa ask directly. The cast is made of teenagers that already lose in life. Ken can't go to pro boxing because he always enters in fights and always end with a broken hand, Goro can't be an artist because is like everything is against him, Masaru have a gambling addiction being only 18 years old, Shiro try to do the right thing and always gets in fight and Ringo doesn't have anything anymore. He left the opportunity of being a national champion, he doesn't have the wish to do anything anymore, he can try to be a better student but for what? Everyone wants to fight him. Is just the very relatable moment in banchou works when you see the characters knowloding how everything sucks and even if they did the right choices the system is against them.

The mix of russian literature with japanese movies and mangas sure goes hard.

ideia boa, execução daora
palmas em especial pras músicas e pro visual em pixel art, mt bom mesmo, ambos
gameplay não é ruim mas tbm não é ótima, dá pra tankar
a história parece ser meio paradona, leve, contemplativa, isso não é ruim, parece ser justamente a proposta do jogo

n to na vibe agora mas um dia com certeza vou zerar, enquanto isso, fica a recomendação pra quem curte jogo de não fazer muita coisa ala stardew valley (sim, senti semelhança K), japão e seus deliquentes, e pixel art bem feita :)

Joia rara que fico feliz de ter achado totalmente ao acaso

Recomendo a todos que gostam de Yakuza, GTO, Stardew Valley, etc. Sim, existe relação. Não, não irei explicar... vá jogar!

A única coisa que me decepcionou de verdade, e que me faz dar 4.5 invés do perfeito 5, é o pacing do jogo, que é totalmente sem pé nem cabeça, os acontecimentos-chave sequer parecem ter uma ordem bem definida, tão pouco uma claridade sobre o que é o gatilho dos acontecimentos. Você só vai jogando o jogo normalmente, seguindo sua vida (no jogo), melhorando o personagem, e, se der sorte (e estiver sozinho), esbarra num evento canônico, e de fato faz progresso no jogo

Zerei com cerca de 17h, mas vi gente que zerou com 10, 12h. E dessa vez, nada pode ser dito sobre eu fazer ou não fazer conteúdo secundário. O jogo parece ser, POR SI SÓ, um tipo de conteúdo secundário, o qual não se faz claro em momento algum ao jogador

Essa abordagem mais clássica, de soltar a mão do jogador sem explicar nada até pode parecer convidativa, ainda mais nos dias de hoje, que vemos um EXCESSO de "mimo" por parte do jogo, mas aqui é demais, te solta demais e a frustração é inevitável, caso você não dê sorte de só dar trigger de evento canônico atrás de trigger

Quando for jogar, recomendo ir na boa, realmente se inteirando e aproveitando de todas atividades do mundo do jogo, pois este, tem uma natureza contemplativa. Porém, se passar MUITO tempo sem algo novo acontecer, veja um guia ou algo assim sem medo. Vai ser pior se você travar.

Desde já agradeço qualquer um que ler isso aqui até o final :)
Essa provavelmente vai ser minha review mais longa de todas, mas eu tenho TANTO pra falar desse jogo e ele se conecta com tantas coisas pessoais minhas que ele realmente merece ser a maior review que eu puder fazer e me sinto orgulhoso de conseguir escrever tudo do jeito que eu queria.

Dois dos meus filmes preferidos da vida (Kids Return e Blue Spring, que recomendo absurdamente) tratam do mesmo assunto que esse jogo e da mesma maneira também, então já sabia bem o que esperar e mesmo assim me surpreendi MUITO. Todas as reflexões sobre a vida e o futuro que bate à porta, a melancolia, expectativas sobre os caminhos que vamos seguir, o tempo que está passando e que não temos controle nenhum sobre ele, amadurecimento, todos esses detalhes são muito presentes e realmente bem emocionantes e muito fáceis de se conectar.
É incrível ver um trabalho tão bem feito e por alguém tão apaixonado por essas histórias assim como eu (inclusive não sei se é isso mesmo, mas acho que tem uma referência de Tokyo Fist do Tsukamoto em uma parte do jogo que me deixou muito eufórico porque eu também amo muito esse filme). É simplesmente incrível, dá pra ver todo o amor por essa criação e essas referências estampado na tela a cada parte do jogo.

Pontos positivos!!!
ABSOLUTAMENTE TUDO????? Os personagens são incríveis e bem escritos, as interações entre eles são muito divertidas e naturais, os gráficos e trilhas sonoras são impecáveis, o combate é muito bem feito e realmente dá vontade de aprender todos os golpes e upar todos os atributos, os lugares são marcantes e bem distribuídos e as interações neles sempre trazem algo de diferente (o que é ainda mais importante sabendo que o jogo não tem mapa pra se guiar e quase tudo nele é só opcional).
Além de elevarem a qualidade técnica do jogo em geral, todos esses tópicos contribuem muito pro sentimento de imersão e te fazem se sentir genuinamente como um personagem presente nesse mundo, com o sistema de aulas e os compromissos da sua rotina incrementando tudo isso e realmente dando sentido pra mecânica do jogo e o modo como tudo vai sendo apresentado, sem deixar maçante nem mesmo as partes mais focadas em estudar, ler, fazer trabalhos ou assistir as aulas (que achei que seriam as partes mais fracas do jogo).

Pontos negativos!!!
Na verdade é um só, e que demorou um tempo pra realmente me afetar e causar algo negativo. No geral, o loop de gameplay é basicamente viver sua rotina fazendo as atividades espalhadas pelo mapa e ir interagindo com o mundo e os personagens, até que aconteça algum evento aleatório ou da história que faz a narrativa seguir adiante. Mas o fato de que não tem como ter ideia de quando ou como esses eventos vão acontecer, e muito menos ter algum controle sobre eles, faz com que você sempre tenha um certo receio de simplesmente perder um dia inteiro com algo que você não tem como controlar e vai acabar prejudicando seu progresso.
Na minha primeira gameplay, eu já tava quase completando todas as sidestories e prestes a pegar a maioria das conquistas quando o jogo simplesmente ACABOU. Tudo bem que já estava tendo uma construção pro final da narrativa e eu já sabia disso, mas o fato de que o último evento da história simplesmente acontece e depois disso já acabou seu save e não dá pra ter o mínimo controle disso, acaba podendo ser bem frustrante.
Não me afetou quando isso aconteceu (até porque a construção do final é muito boa e o final em si é incrível), então eu só comecei na hora outro save e fui fazendo tudo de novo. Mas algumas sidestories exigem rotinas BEM específicas e com muitas variáveis pra funcionarem, e ter esse medo de que em algum momento um evento vai acontecer e me fazer perder o dia inteiro e consequentemente todo o progresso acaba frustrando um pouco (medo esse que não é nem um pouco descabido porque acabou acontecendo TRÊS vezes comigo).
Não acho tão problemático assim, até porque acho o loop de gameplay muito bom de qualquer jeito, mas algum sistema (mesmo que seja o mais simples possível) pra controlar ou ter pelo menos uma noção do calendário de eventos ou simplesmente não permitir essa sobreposição de eventos secundários com as partes da história principal faria o jogo bem menos complicado, e não acho que ia afetar na imersão.

Mesmo que eu tenha falado bem mais sobre a parte negativa (até porque ela realmente é bem complexa), eu ainda considero esse jogo INCRÍVEL e com certeza é um dos favoritos da minha vida, poderia ficar falando ainda mais sobre os pontos positivos e essa review ia ficar maior do que já é, mas acho que o melhor jeito de mostrar os pontos positivos é recomendar que joguem e aproveitem todas as experiências que o jogo permite, principalmente os momentos mais simples (e que mais me dão saudade de viver também) como só andar por aí com seus amigos, sair pra comer e ocasionalmente sair no soco com alguém.
Também aproveitem e saiam pra dar uma volta por aí, ir em algum lugar bom e apreciar as coisas ao nosso redor, com alguma companhia ou não, realmente são momentos que valem a pena ser experienciados.

Ringo Ishikawa is chivalrous. He's cowardly. But above all else, he's lost.

I was most compelled by the characters here, and certainly not the gameplay. It's the kind of game where you want a guide right beside you the whole way through, because you'll get fucked 50 ways to Sunday if you try to engage in combat early on. UX is a two-pack of ass in general.

The story is good, and all the characters have great dialogue. For a debut it's essentially a smash hit in writing and narrative, but the gameplay is an anchor that firmly weighs it down. My playthrough took 45 days ingame and clocked in at ~8 hours, and it got real dead by the end. You can say "That's the point!" all you like, but that doesn't mean it's a good one. A fixed 31 days would have created a tighter pace with more urgency, as well as encourage repeat playthroughs. Oh well.

You should watch The Friends of Eddie Coyle if you haven't already.

The friends of Ringo Ishikawa was a game that took me back to my teenage years, viewed through the sobering & cynical lens of hindsight. The titular Ringo & his friends are a bunch of classic Japanese delinquents, with seemingly no initial higher ambitions beyond their schoolyard gang warfare, entering their final year as students with graduation on the horizon. Despite being a gaggle of petty thugs who smoke cigarettes & have seemingly little interest in their own futures, it's shown as the plot goes on that there's more to each of these delinquents than let's on. Your violent, dumb-as-rocks lackey Goro is a surprisingly talented thespian. Your number one brawler Ken has the talent necessary for a shot at a boxing career in college. Even Ringo himself is a shockingly erudite scholar with an interest in literature, a once-promising career in karate, and is a surprisingly idealistic, loyal, man of virtue. The one thing holding them back is their gang lifestyle & ideas, something that resonated with me as someone who saw this same situation play out dozens of times in my youth.

My own high school wasn't great looking back on it. Violence & abuse were common occurrences, drug use & sex in the hallways was an unspoken fact of life, and basically everyone was a minority of some kind from a low-income background. Lots of people I knew came from broken homes, or were working part-time to put food on the table, or were otherwise struggling with something no kid should've been dealing with at that age, the kind of things that can make studying for your history exam seem like small potatoes. It's a structural issue decades in the making that leads to people getting trapped in places like these, and unfortunately not everyone is able to escape it. Schoolyard fights that escalated into shootings. Football players who graduate with bright prospects only to then get arrested for murder. Kids akin to Ringo's gang members like Masaru or Goro, who have zero sights beyond the now & fully believe they'll be set for a life of petty crime after graduation. The short-sighted violent mindsets people box themselves into that end up spelling their own ends because they can't escape the circumstances that put them there.

I vividly remember hanging out in the parking lot after school one day, and I saw a kid reading a book on the hood of his car. His friends came up to him and immediately dogged on him for this and the supposed weakness such a hobby would project on your image, and he sheepishly put it away in his bag before he left with his friends. It's a small event in hindsight, but it was called back to my mind crystal clear during a scene where Ringo's friends rip into their fellow member Goro for his new vested interest in acting.

Ringo, for all his virtues, for all the books you can make him read, for all the training he can undergo, for all the studying & knowledge you can try to impart on him, still fully believes that his gang of schoolyard bullies is going to last forever, despite it being made rapidly apparent that everyone is starting to move on and find their own callings. Ringo still gets into casual street fights & latches onto his childish notions of schoolyard ethics, of "official challenges" and "rules," even as things spiral out of anyone's control & everyone starts to get in too deep. Much like some of my peers that I saw in my youth, he's a bright soul with potential and promise that is being squandered by his own adherence to violence and unhealthy group mentalities & expectations, and the simple fact is that as the days go by, everyone around him is starting to realize that they need to grow up and move past it all.

Everyone except him.

"They say that one of life's greatest tragedies is a talent gone to waste."

"What about those who have no talent? Are their lives wasted from the start?"

--

"The book's about nothing."

The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa was and is a polarizing game. By virtue of its design decisions and lack of QOL its going to alienate a lot of people, fitting for a game in part about alienation.

If there is one word to describe the game it is ballsy. Only a ballsy game that 25% of its buyers will refund as per the devs own account would let you loose in this 80s Japanese town with basically no guidance. And whilst some parts of this feel intentional and help the mood of the game as you slowly learn how to get ahead in several ways, some just feel petty and/or dumb. Yeo himself could tell me that not telling me how to read books by sitting in any seat and pressing R or having to press B + A to jump to be able to do pull ups(which you have to do to join at least one club) is an intentional part of his design and I wouldnt believe him, and also I would flick his ear for being annoying.

The hunger mechanic is also not explained at all and I was pretty stressed at first losing fights and days trying to scrape enough cash from fights to buy food, but then I got 10k yen from good grades and basically had no money problems from then on, aided by the fact I somehow read a book which apparently doubles the knowledge you get from going to class.

Ringo is a game about roleplaying, not because of its stat elements that very assuredly non RPGs have these days, but because so much of the game revolves around ultimately mechanically inconsequential but nonetheless engrossing stuff. The quality of its writing really shines when you spend an entire sunday reading the Brothers Karamazov so Ringo can give it a good rating on Goodreads and have a 3 or 4 text box discussion about it with a classmate. Its a game where you smoke a limited amount of smokes for 440 yen a pack, which AFAIK has no effect on anything at a mechanical level whatsoever. But its about what Ringo wants to become, maybe you want him to quit smoking. Get straight As and go to the gym every day. Or you can have him play pool and beating up other thugs 24/7.

Ringo is a game that almost alienated me, and honestly I think reading up how to read books at home and do pushups, as inconsequential as they ended up being, increased my enjoyment of the game rather than spoil it. I didnt do many of the "quests" cause in a move that is definitely intentional there is no transcript or anything, if a friend says "Yuko is near the station tomorrow you should go" or something youre just meant to remember where that is in a game without a map and also to remember what day youre on and other such things. I suppose I could replay it but this game is definitely one that loses its luster by the end, maybe intentionally but it didnt seem that way to me and honestly Im tired of speculating on authorial intent, my experience dragged on a bit towards the conclusion even if that ending was...well it gave me something to think about certainly.

EDIT : Always the mark of good art, I have kept thinking about this game after I have finished it, it occupies my mind in a way I hadnt anticipated. Im bumping it up half a star cause I think for what flaws it might have its captured my imagination.

A gorgeous and deeply intimate game about growing up in a small suburban japanese town. Some people complain that it is boring… And I mean, it is, but it’s one of those games were that’s intended, and as purposely numbs you through its gameplay it transports you to the banality of its characters lives, with nothing really important to do and not much more on the horizon, seemingly trapped in this monotonous existence forever.

I think the story just works well with the mechanics, your day to day being occasionally interrupted by a couple handcrafted events that don’t really change anything but it kinda give you new perspectives of Ringo’s friends and acquaintances. Again, is not much, but is not meant to be much.

And as you fight your way through meaningless opponents, and discuss the books you read in class (you can read James Joyce’s Ulysses!) I was reminded of the uber famous first page of Blood Meridian “and in him broods already a taste for mindless violence”, and it just clicked with me in a way I wasn’t expecting, it became a more vivid experience. Also, McCarthy’s also commonly criticized for being boring, granted in part in the sheer brutality of what he depicts but also because even his elaborated, epic, almost biblical prose tends to get repetitive, but, as with this game, that’s also by design. Hell, The Road is, in my opinion, an extensive exercise on repetitiveness.

Any way, even if it can be dull, I really think thad adds to the experience, and the writing and visuals are good enough to justify it.

Fui conquistar suzuran e ganhei depressão.

Não tem muito o que falar da historia sem estragar a experiência. São jovens confusos no seus últimos dias de colegial buscando objetivos e novas experiências, e com isso muitas das vezes se expressando com a força.

Na estrutura, ele é um jogo é um mundo aberto sem mapa ou qualquer objetivo, o jogador é livre para fazer o que bem entender diariamente controlando Ringo. Seja estudar, trabalhar, malhar, roubar, entrar em confusão e etc.

Na parte técnica faltou um polimento, mas nada que vá estragar o jogo. O combate é bem simples, um botão para soco outro para chute, novos golpes são aprendidos praticando alguma arte marcial.

Não sei muito bem como colocar em palavras o que estou sentindo sobre ele no momento mas com certeza um dos meus favoritos, cada hora nele valeu muito a pena, é minha ambientação e tema favorito nos mangás e aqui é feito com maestria. É muito bom vivenciar o drama de cada personagem.