Arus
This review contains spoilers
Whatever way you imagine it, Vampire the Masquerade Bloodline is a really interesting game to think about. I'm drawn to messy transitional games that are polysemic in nature and Bloodlines fits that to a tee. A game that is all at once a CRPG adaptation of a complex and unorthodox tabletop rpg, a source engine FPS and an immersive sim lite. A game that marked the death of a continuous tradition of mainstream non-indie choice and consequence heavy rpgs while also highlighting how it might have continued to evolve. Its a game that is impossible to break down into any one thing and its for that reason I believe it has endured past its launch as a cult classic among so many different audiences.
I only wish it was as interesting to experience. I say 'experience' rather than 'play' because I'm well used to a lot of my favorite rpgs having less than stellar individual systems, my favorite rpgs offer a holistic experience that surpasses their many shortcomings. I think even Bloodlines biggest fans would say the same thing about this game. I was prepared to accept the wonky gunplay, stealth and melee but the overall experience never came together the way it has for my friend and many others.
I'll talk a bit first on what did come together. I think Bloodline's execution of character building comes together brilliantly well and offers a genre high creation screen with its (seven!!!) playable races each moulding the player's journey in big and small ways. I got Malkavian during the intro quiz and got a lot of mileage out of the dementation skill unique to them, whether that be spamming veil of madness to suck people to death or using the voice of Bedlam to cause chaos among crowds. And outside of combat I had just as much fun trying to determine what my character was trying to say and chatting with stop signs and a monitor bound news anchorman. I played this as part of a monthly gaming club me and my friends do and it was thrilling to hear how differently other peoples playthroughs were. If I ever play this game again, seeing how the other clans play will be my primary motivation.
I also adore the setting and all the early noughties grunge that comes with it. I could never get enough of the sights and sounds of Santa Monica, Downtown and Hollywood. The Piers alone took me back to a place of deep nostalgia. Bloodlines often fixates on the minutiae of mundane urban spaces and more broadly a melancholy and even ominous sense of aimlessness and alienation. It is felt most keenly in the many one-off mission spaces. Oceanview Hotel is often praised as the best of these but honestly I loved nearly all of them. Whether it be continually descending through a parking lot or traipsing through a near empty apartment block, I wish the game had emphasizes these smaller spaces more at the expense of the hubs. They are more distinctly themed and paced, functioning as bespoke little challenges in which the game's systemic opportunities and more immersive sim qualities shine the brightest.
As for everything else the operative term would be 'unfinished'. Virtually every other facet of Bloodlines' design feels either unfinished or unrealized to a substantial degree. I enjoy the theming and atmosphere of the hubs but beyond that they are static and bare in contrast to the more dynamic and denser mission spaces. Past the first visit there are no new encounters or changes that make them anything more than avenues for backtracking. And though I enjoyed most of the mission spaces, the Nosferatu sewer is easily the worst dungeon I've played in a game this year and the endgame dungeons are of a similar unfinished quality. The main narrative for the most part railroads the Fledgling into working for LaCroix and thus there is little actual politicking in a game that emphasize the inter-clan intrigue and conflict. LaCroix himself isn't a particularly nuanced figure and while I came to appreciate his punchable nature, the slack isn't really picked up anywhere outside of the Voerman sisters and Nines. Characters like Ming Xiao feel more like sketches than complicated people with their own agendas. And it all unravels in the last third of the game into a series of heavily telegraphed betrayals and double-crossings that make the protagonist seem like the most inept vampire in existence while also perpetuating a very ugly Yellow Peril message that I hope was done out of unintentional ignorance. I generally enjoyed a lot of the side quests and individual characters but by the end they weren't quite able to make up for a narrative that is half-sketched at best and kind of misanthropic and outright racist at worst.
I enjoyed Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. I get why people love this game so much, I'm glad my friend got to recommend it to me. I certainly vibe with how it looks, sounds and even feels. It makes me want to go the West Coast. It also never really rose above 'disjointed' and 'incoherent' for me. Deeply compelling and disjointed in equal parts.
I only wish it was as interesting to experience. I say 'experience' rather than 'play' because I'm well used to a lot of my favorite rpgs having less than stellar individual systems, my favorite rpgs offer a holistic experience that surpasses their many shortcomings. I think even Bloodlines biggest fans would say the same thing about this game. I was prepared to accept the wonky gunplay, stealth and melee but the overall experience never came together the way it has for my friend and many others.
I'll talk a bit first on what did come together. I think Bloodline's execution of character building comes together brilliantly well and offers a genre high creation screen with its (seven!!!) playable races each moulding the player's journey in big and small ways. I got Malkavian during the intro quiz and got a lot of mileage out of the dementation skill unique to them, whether that be spamming veil of madness to suck people to death or using the voice of Bedlam to cause chaos among crowds. And outside of combat I had just as much fun trying to determine what my character was trying to say and chatting with stop signs and a monitor bound news anchorman. I played this as part of a monthly gaming club me and my friends do and it was thrilling to hear how differently other peoples playthroughs were. If I ever play this game again, seeing how the other clans play will be my primary motivation.
I also adore the setting and all the early noughties grunge that comes with it. I could never get enough of the sights and sounds of Santa Monica, Downtown and Hollywood. The Piers alone took me back to a place of deep nostalgia. Bloodlines often fixates on the minutiae of mundane urban spaces and more broadly a melancholy and even ominous sense of aimlessness and alienation. It is felt most keenly in the many one-off mission spaces. Oceanview Hotel is often praised as the best of these but honestly I loved nearly all of them. Whether it be continually descending through a parking lot or traipsing through a near empty apartment block, I wish the game had emphasizes these smaller spaces more at the expense of the hubs. They are more distinctly themed and paced, functioning as bespoke little challenges in which the game's systemic opportunities and more immersive sim qualities shine the brightest.
As for everything else the operative term would be 'unfinished'. Virtually every other facet of Bloodlines' design feels either unfinished or unrealized to a substantial degree. I enjoy the theming and atmosphere of the hubs but beyond that they are static and bare in contrast to the more dynamic and denser mission spaces. Past the first visit there are no new encounters or changes that make them anything more than avenues for backtracking. And though I enjoyed most of the mission spaces, the Nosferatu sewer is easily the worst dungeon I've played in a game this year and the endgame dungeons are of a similar unfinished quality. The main narrative for the most part railroads the Fledgling into working for LaCroix and thus there is little actual politicking in a game that emphasize the inter-clan intrigue and conflict. LaCroix himself isn't a particularly nuanced figure and while I came to appreciate his punchable nature, the slack isn't really picked up anywhere outside of the Voerman sisters and Nines. Characters like Ming Xiao feel more like sketches than complicated people with their own agendas. And it all unravels in the last third of the game into a series of heavily telegraphed betrayals and double-crossings that make the protagonist seem like the most inept vampire in existence while also perpetuating a very ugly Yellow Peril message that I hope was done out of unintentional ignorance. I generally enjoyed a lot of the side quests and individual characters but by the end they weren't quite able to make up for a narrative that is half-sketched at best and kind of misanthropic and outright racist at worst.
I enjoyed Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. I get why people love this game so much, I'm glad my friend got to recommend it to me. I certainly vibe with how it looks, sounds and even feels. It makes me want to go the West Coast. It also never really rose above 'disjointed' and 'incoherent' for me. Deeply compelling and disjointed in equal parts.
More than anything this game reminds me of Dragon Quest 11. They both share the same light, hands off approach to modern JRPG design trends. In spite of its vintage clothing, the body of Ara Fell is decidedly more Xenoblade than Chrono Trigger in its density of cutscenes and gameplay systems. I was weary of the potential for bloat yet like Dragon Quest, Ara Fell is conscientious of the ideas its drawing from and the result is a lean and focused adventure.
On a kinaesthetic level, I appreciate how deeply the devs leaned into the inherently cozy feel of RPGMaker. I love the richness of these scrolling tilesets and the awkward frictions of trying to perceive where these squat sprites can manouevre into. There's an intimate sense of place these RGPmaker-isms produce, further accentuated with a lush art direction in which you can practically smell the grass scented winds and feel the drifting snow. It's a game that is staid rather than kinetic, about soaking in the world and all its lovely details rather than rushing towards the next plot point.
To that end, regular battles are de-emphasised. Battles against normal mooks are both easy to avoid and (relatively) easy to defeat, you recharge mp after every turn so there is no reason to resort to spamming basic attacks. There is not even any accompanying battle music. Growth then is mainly earned through boss fights and sidequests. The latter of which are found by naturally exploring alongside one off resources that are used for a simple linear crafting system for armor and weapon upgrades. Progression in Ara Fell is concise and silent, power is earned naturally rather than throguh constant notifications and checklists.
'Silent' is maybe the key term I've come to appreciate about Ara Fell so much. The story is wordy yet much of that weight is used to effectivley characterise the Protagonist and explore a perspective that is unique as far as JRPGs go. There are big bombastic themes yet much of the soundtrack is ambient and pleasingly blends into the overall soundscape. There are side-quests to complete and materials to collect for a crafting system but they're all diegetically interwoven into the world. In everything thus far, Ara Fell has been succinct and to the point, a joy in every way.
Random Notes:
- I appreciate how the Devs leaned into clunkiness a bit with giving every exploration activity a distinct animation and sound, it imparts a sense of weight and presence in the protagonist you don't usually see in this type of game.
- Once again I can't emphasize enough how refreshing it is to have a JRPG with no normal battle theme. I don't know if the devs were inspired by Sakimoto's work on FF12 but the lack of a hype battle theme threatening to take over imparts a similar naturalism and interconnectedness to area exploration here. Not every rpg needs a battle theme.
- I didn't really mention it much in the review but I appreciate as well how non-gated and non-railroaded the game has been up till this point. It really gives you a wide berth in terms of areas, quests and things you can find before the story even sends you there, again sort of similar to FF12. Can you tell I really love FF12 lol.
- Dungeon design is fun, nothing too complex but the little puzzles and bespoke mechanics go a decent way in contextualising them as spaces beyond hallways full of random encounters.
On a kinaesthetic level, I appreciate how deeply the devs leaned into the inherently cozy feel of RPGMaker. I love the richness of these scrolling tilesets and the awkward frictions of trying to perceive where these squat sprites can manouevre into. There's an intimate sense of place these RGPmaker-isms produce, further accentuated with a lush art direction in which you can practically smell the grass scented winds and feel the drifting snow. It's a game that is staid rather than kinetic, about soaking in the world and all its lovely details rather than rushing towards the next plot point.
To that end, regular battles are de-emphasised. Battles against normal mooks are both easy to avoid and (relatively) easy to defeat, you recharge mp after every turn so there is no reason to resort to spamming basic attacks. There is not even any accompanying battle music. Growth then is mainly earned through boss fights and sidequests. The latter of which are found by naturally exploring alongside one off resources that are used for a simple linear crafting system for armor and weapon upgrades. Progression in Ara Fell is concise and silent, power is earned naturally rather than throguh constant notifications and checklists.
'Silent' is maybe the key term I've come to appreciate about Ara Fell so much. The story is wordy yet much of that weight is used to effectivley characterise the Protagonist and explore a perspective that is unique as far as JRPGs go. There are big bombastic themes yet much of the soundtrack is ambient and pleasingly blends into the overall soundscape. There are side-quests to complete and materials to collect for a crafting system but they're all diegetically interwoven into the world. In everything thus far, Ara Fell has been succinct and to the point, a joy in every way.
Random Notes:
- I appreciate how the Devs leaned into clunkiness a bit with giving every exploration activity a distinct animation and sound, it imparts a sense of weight and presence in the protagonist you don't usually see in this type of game.
- Once again I can't emphasize enough how refreshing it is to have a JRPG with no normal battle theme. I don't know if the devs were inspired by Sakimoto's work on FF12 but the lack of a hype battle theme threatening to take over imparts a similar naturalism and interconnectedness to area exploration here. Not every rpg needs a battle theme.
- I didn't really mention it much in the review but I appreciate as well how non-gated and non-railroaded the game has been up till this point. It really gives you a wide berth in terms of areas, quests and things you can find before the story even sends you there, again sort of similar to FF12. Can you tell I really love FF12 lol.
- Dungeon design is fun, nothing too complex but the little puzzles and bespoke mechanics go a decent way in contextualising them as spaces beyond hallways full of random encounters.
2017
I love timeloop video games because they stress a resource more precious than health or money: time. Games like Dead Rising, Lightning's Returns and Ghost Trick have managed to create a meaningful gameplay loop entirely off of the thrill and friction of limited time. The Sexy Brutale attempts to do the same with a groundhog day-style series of murders you seek to prevent in its eponymous mansion. Rather than embrace the sandbox side of timeloop games, it is more so a series of mini loops in the form of linear puzzles a la Ghost Trick. Its a small indie game and so I have no problem with such a reduction in scope as long as the puzzle design benefits from a more linear and iterative approach like Ghost Trick but this is unfortunately not the case. The solution to saving each of the mansion's guests don't become anything more complex than "interact with one or maybe two specific object out of a bunch of red herrings at a specific time and win". You are always given more than enough time to carry out the intended sequence and so the 12 hour limit ends up being a percunctory feature, something that really disappointed me given how few of these games there are. There's no eureka moment of realising the solution and subsequent thrill of trying to complete it within the time limit. In spite of its fantastical "all bets are off" roaring 20s aesthetic, the only emotional high I ever achieved while playing this was 'mildly engaged'. The ending was the high point of the game but was this half-hearted timeloop structure really the best avenue to get there? This was the first game me and my friends played as part of our monthly game club and I'll derive more enjoyment from time spent discussing The Sexy Brutale than the time I spent playing it.
For all that people have lambasted Skyrim for its fundamental flaws, myself included, it is a game that thrives in its smallest moments. After reading Proudlittleseal's lovely review, I decided to give Skyrim a long delayed replay and try to appreciate it on its own terms. I ignored the Skyrim that has aged least well; the series of overly scripted questlines in which the same five voice actors blandly talk over each other about how the Player is the only one that can save the world from Alduin /Eye of Magus/ Stephen Russell. And instead I played the Skyrim that has more in common with the scuffed fantasy paperbacks from charity shops that I used to love for their sincere and uncomplicated adventures. Helping a witch turn on her coven. Having a drinking contest in Ivarstead only to wake to the disapproving glare of a Priestess in Markarth. Investigating a conspiracy only to escape the city with a bounty over a 1000 septims. Assisting a Priest of Mara in leaving his past behind so he can travel by my side. The old hermit who led me to a cavern the size of a small nation. Skyrim thrives in this picaresque framing where every character, dungeon or encounter organically weave into a journey that becomes more than the sum of its parts. In a genre I've come to associate with bloat and busywork, its just refreshing to play a game that cuts all that out and lets me embrace the wanderlust that got me playing rpgs in the first place. Its far from perfect but I see its value now.
This review contains spoilers
"And that is the tale of how the time of the Shapers came to an end and of how the people of Terrestia began to look for new ways to learn and advance. A journey from a small forgotten island to the farthest extent of the known lands."
When I played Geneforge 5, the final game in the series, the same question kept occuring to me over my 60 hour playtime. How do you end an rpg series like Geneforge? Each Geneforge game exists both as an narrative elaboration and enrichening of the universe long term players have invested in and as an entry point for new players. With Geneforge 5 this balance is made all the more precarious because of its finality. How do you provide a satisfying goodbye for a universe that by design encourages players to make their own diverging interpretations of it? There is no carried over save between Geneforge games and each entry has its own distinct factions, ideological conflict and endings so that by the time of 5, there are many different types of players who have created their own distinct expectations for 5, a game that somehow has to account for these without any crutches in the form of save transfers or increases in length or scope (it was made in the same amount of time as its predecessors and has roughly the same scope too).
Of course this same question is applicable towards a lot of other RPG series'. But I really only started thinking about it with Geneforge is because I have yet to play an rpg series with the same degree of thematic and mechanical consistency. It's serialization arguably has more in common with novels than video games. More times often than not I find video games to be ill suited as a medium for consistent and coherent long form storytelling. The nature of AAA software production in conjunction with the influence of capital, both of which reduce the craftperson's creative autonomy, can make game development a poor environment for the survival of multi-game stories. Most series' I have played tend to settle on a looser, standalone and overall safer approach to multi-game storytelling and in many cases their thematic potential is disrupted by material realities. To move away from the faux theorizing and speak more bluntly, this greatly hinders the capacity of most video game series' to reap the benefits of long form storytelling. I love fantasy as a genre and especially so in the form of big stupid epic fantasy series like say Malazan. Yeah, Malazan is sometimes sanctimonious, preachy and distasteful in certain scenes but as a complete and densely interconnected work, a passionate and sincere expression of someone who genuinely it would be his last chance to truly make something meaningful. I adore it. I could never see something like Malazan surviving a typical gaming publisher.
Naturally there is a big asterix to my above spiel in the form of Indies. Indie devs do not necessarily have to worry about publisher interference and consequently enjoy much more freedom in creating what they want to create. Vogel in particular had already been prolific in the shareware scene for a half a decade when the first Geneforge was released. He already released the Exile trilogy which over the course of three games portrayed a broad narrative of imprisonment and revolt. And though he never initially intended for Geneforge to be a series and each game is intended to be friendly to newcomers, there's a quiet yet thorough commitment to serialized world building. From 2 onwards each entry both deepens the setting while also wrinkling it so to question and complicate assumptions. People, groups and places naturally change and adapt both before and during a long and devastating war. So much time passes between 1 and 5 that people view the poorly documented events surrounding Sucia Island through a legendary lens that has contributed to the construction of new group identities. Indeed, one of the most revolutionary ideologies introduced in Geneforge 4 and iterated in Geneforge 5 has its real origins all the way back in the original game. In this regard, it achieves a real impression of depth as even the most novel movements and ideas have some textual origin. It's the sort of confident and thorough iteration that one would expect from someone who was able to work uninterrupted on a universe that was in all ways his own.
Geneforge 5 then is able to reap the benefits of such a rich and thoroughly developed setting. In that regard it is most rewarding for series veterans who can appreciate the final evolution of ideas played around with in earlier entries. Yet Vogel still threw new players a bone by framing the protagonist as an amnesiac. Such an archetype is deeply formulaic yet its usage in 5 serves to reinforce core themes of the setting while also providing a beginners insight into the complexities of the world. 5 smartly never makes the mystery of the protagonist's identity become central to the plot at risk of overshadowing the setting. Rather it serves as a natural guide towards the various factions making up the world so that the player's natural curiosity of their origins is gradually molded towards a more ideological interest in the various groups vying for hegemony. It ties in nicely with the conceit that the Player's amnesia is the result of extreme shaping. In the end whoever the protagonist was is overshadowed by the protagonist to be, the one whose actions will help decide the future of Terrestria.
Indeed, more than any prior entry since 1 at least 5 makes the setting in all its accumulated facets the center of the experience. It does so by synthesizing the sandbox structure and factional interplay of Geneforge 1 and 2 with Geneforge 3 and 4's emphasis on a more guided and slightly abstracted continental scope. To elaborate on that, each Geneforge gradually moves closer and closer to the Shaper heartlands and 5 brings this process to its conclusion being set in Western Terrestia where the ruling Shaper Council is located. Rather than heavily guide the player's journey as was done in 3 and 4, after leaving the White Spire Mountains, the player is free to engage with the various factions of Terrestia not withstanding some soft barriers. By this point in the series, the war has reached a point of near stalemate as both the Shapers and Rebels lack any decisive edge over the other. Consequently the failure of conventional warfare and tactics to resolve the conflict in addition to the radical dislocation and devastation of the war has shattered the political consensus and prompted Shaper and non-Shaper elites to seek alternate paths to peace. It's a rich, multifaceted setting that's only rivaled by Geneforge 1's Sucia Island. Like that game, 5 deeply humanizes all of Western Terrestia's inhabitants and parallels their experience with their historical forebearers. Before the arrival of the Shapers, the peoples of Western Terrestia made up many independent groups. The Shaper empire was built upon their conquest and assimilation into the Imperial project and popular memory of the pre-Shaper past interwine with the devastation of the Shaper War. In truth, this aspect of 5 could have been fleshed out as the agency of the region's political elites are favored over the fate of its ordinary inhabitants.
This focus on domestic politics interweaves seamlessly with the greater emphasis on factional conflict as the backbone of the game's structure. It navigates a fine line between giving the protagonist some agency in who they decide to align with while also preventing them from quickly rising through the ranks to become leader. Ultimately, Geneforge 5 makes the protagonist work for factions instead of them working for the protagonist and it is all the better for it. The various people you meet hold deeply rooted beliefs informed by their life experiences that are not uprooted just because of the Protagonist's charisma and likewise each faction and their collective tenets are never compromised in the face of the player. Geneforge 5 lets you be an agent and engage in genuinely interesting espionage and diplomacy but it sets a limit to how much the player alone can actually do. Its telling that the only way to get an unequivocally 'bad' ending is to lock yourself off of every factional storyline so that the one thing everyone agrees upon is that you are better off alive than dead. But that's fine because I love being an agent. The range of factions you can join widens in tandem with the range of locations you can access. First you're limited to being the lackey of Shaper Rawal in the Whitespires and then Agent Astoria of the Mera Tev and many more beyond that. You quickly find yourself caught between several factions at a time. Furthermore, several quests revolve around an item sought out by multiple interested parties and a definitive choice has to be made that impacts factional reputation. Even beyond those quests, nearly every opinion you express and quest you do gradually increases hidden formulas and moulds how other factions see you. That sounds rather banal given how common 'reputation' is in sandbox rpgs but there's a refreshing minimalism to it in 5. It's a more organic approach to choice and consequence that eschews arbitrarily filling up a meter and instead a more gradual and uneven self-fashioning that naturally opens up some doors whilst closing others.
The factional conflict comes into full bloom in the second half of 5 when you gain access to Southern Terrestia and thus all five factions. Unfortunately there is a slight lessening of quality after the halfway point that was not present in Geneforge 4. The first half of 5 is densely built and interconnected, the Whitespires, the Mera Tev and Okaveno Fens is densely interconnected in both geography and questlines so that you are always doing something meaningful that affects something else. There is still some of this in the Storm Plains and Dera Reaches but these regions are overall sparser and lacking in the careful attention to detail demonstrated earlier. At least the factions are as interesting here as in the Northern Terrestia. Whereas the somewhat more sheltered Mera Tev has allowed Astoria to parlay with the Rebels, the Storm Plains are the frontline of the Rebellion and its defender Alwan, returning from 3 and 4, has become more idea than person in his uncompromising and fanatical defence of traditional Shaper ideals while his colleague further south experiments with a plan that reveals Shaper politics at their most nakedly fascistic and genocidal. Though I wish there was just a bit more here in terms of density the second half of 5 shows how rich and multifaceted this fictional universe has become and the ease in which it facilitates the playstyles and ideological leanings of the many types of players this series has accumulated.
I was somewhat disheartened playing through 5 knowing that there would be no more Geneforge after it. Yet when I reached the credits I felt the same sort of satisfaction that I associate with a good series of books that comes naturally to a fitting conclusion. There could have been a Geneforge 6 but what purpose would it really serve? This series reinvigorated my love of rpgs after a long period of time where I thought I had outgrown them. There were ups and downs but across my hundreds of hours playing this series I never grew exhausted with it the same way I grew exhausted after only 30 hours of Starfield. Even though there will never be a new Geneforge there will be remakes and more significantly replays where I can enjoy these games in whole new lenses. And even then I'll be able to cherish the many wonderful memories I have made with this series. There's so much more I could talk about like all the effort that was put into playing as a Servile or the other stupid stuff I talked about in my logs. I barely even mentioned the gameplay (its quite unbalanced)! I guess I'll conclude this overstuff review with something sincere.
Thank you Jeff Vogel.
"The characters in this history are all gone now. But the results of their struggles, of the risks they took, the fears they overcame, and the decisions they tried to make wisely. the product of their labors continues to this day.
For us to understand, to endure, and, if needed, to change."
When I played Geneforge 5, the final game in the series, the same question kept occuring to me over my 60 hour playtime. How do you end an rpg series like Geneforge? Each Geneforge game exists both as an narrative elaboration and enrichening of the universe long term players have invested in and as an entry point for new players. With Geneforge 5 this balance is made all the more precarious because of its finality. How do you provide a satisfying goodbye for a universe that by design encourages players to make their own diverging interpretations of it? There is no carried over save between Geneforge games and each entry has its own distinct factions, ideological conflict and endings so that by the time of 5, there are many different types of players who have created their own distinct expectations for 5, a game that somehow has to account for these without any crutches in the form of save transfers or increases in length or scope (it was made in the same amount of time as its predecessors and has roughly the same scope too).
Of course this same question is applicable towards a lot of other RPG series'. But I really only started thinking about it with Geneforge is because I have yet to play an rpg series with the same degree of thematic and mechanical consistency. It's serialization arguably has more in common with novels than video games. More times often than not I find video games to be ill suited as a medium for consistent and coherent long form storytelling. The nature of AAA software production in conjunction with the influence of capital, both of which reduce the craftperson's creative autonomy, can make game development a poor environment for the survival of multi-game stories. Most series' I have played tend to settle on a looser, standalone and overall safer approach to multi-game storytelling and in many cases their thematic potential is disrupted by material realities. To move away from the faux theorizing and speak more bluntly, this greatly hinders the capacity of most video game series' to reap the benefits of long form storytelling. I love fantasy as a genre and especially so in the form of big stupid epic fantasy series like say Malazan. Yeah, Malazan is sometimes sanctimonious, preachy and distasteful in certain scenes but as a complete and densely interconnected work, a passionate and sincere expression of someone who genuinely it would be his last chance to truly make something meaningful. I adore it. I could never see something like Malazan surviving a typical gaming publisher.
Naturally there is a big asterix to my above spiel in the form of Indies. Indie devs do not necessarily have to worry about publisher interference and consequently enjoy much more freedom in creating what they want to create. Vogel in particular had already been prolific in the shareware scene for a half a decade when the first Geneforge was released. He already released the Exile trilogy which over the course of three games portrayed a broad narrative of imprisonment and revolt. And though he never initially intended for Geneforge to be a series and each game is intended to be friendly to newcomers, there's a quiet yet thorough commitment to serialized world building. From 2 onwards each entry both deepens the setting while also wrinkling it so to question and complicate assumptions. People, groups and places naturally change and adapt both before and during a long and devastating war. So much time passes between 1 and 5 that people view the poorly documented events surrounding Sucia Island through a legendary lens that has contributed to the construction of new group identities. Indeed, one of the most revolutionary ideologies introduced in Geneforge 4 and iterated in Geneforge 5 has its real origins all the way back in the original game. In this regard, it achieves a real impression of depth as even the most novel movements and ideas have some textual origin. It's the sort of confident and thorough iteration that one would expect from someone who was able to work uninterrupted on a universe that was in all ways his own.
Geneforge 5 then is able to reap the benefits of such a rich and thoroughly developed setting. In that regard it is most rewarding for series veterans who can appreciate the final evolution of ideas played around with in earlier entries. Yet Vogel still threw new players a bone by framing the protagonist as an amnesiac. Such an archetype is deeply formulaic yet its usage in 5 serves to reinforce core themes of the setting while also providing a beginners insight into the complexities of the world. 5 smartly never makes the mystery of the protagonist's identity become central to the plot at risk of overshadowing the setting. Rather it serves as a natural guide towards the various factions making up the world so that the player's natural curiosity of their origins is gradually molded towards a more ideological interest in the various groups vying for hegemony. It ties in nicely with the conceit that the Player's amnesia is the result of extreme shaping. In the end whoever the protagonist was is overshadowed by the protagonist to be, the one whose actions will help decide the future of Terrestria.
Indeed, more than any prior entry since 1 at least 5 makes the setting in all its accumulated facets the center of the experience. It does so by synthesizing the sandbox structure and factional interplay of Geneforge 1 and 2 with Geneforge 3 and 4's emphasis on a more guided and slightly abstracted continental scope. To elaborate on that, each Geneforge gradually moves closer and closer to the Shaper heartlands and 5 brings this process to its conclusion being set in Western Terrestia where the ruling Shaper Council is located. Rather than heavily guide the player's journey as was done in 3 and 4, after leaving the White Spire Mountains, the player is free to engage with the various factions of Terrestia not withstanding some soft barriers. By this point in the series, the war has reached a point of near stalemate as both the Shapers and Rebels lack any decisive edge over the other. Consequently the failure of conventional warfare and tactics to resolve the conflict in addition to the radical dislocation and devastation of the war has shattered the political consensus and prompted Shaper and non-Shaper elites to seek alternate paths to peace. It's a rich, multifaceted setting that's only rivaled by Geneforge 1's Sucia Island. Like that game, 5 deeply humanizes all of Western Terrestia's inhabitants and parallels their experience with their historical forebearers. Before the arrival of the Shapers, the peoples of Western Terrestia made up many independent groups. The Shaper empire was built upon their conquest and assimilation into the Imperial project and popular memory of the pre-Shaper past interwine with the devastation of the Shaper War. In truth, this aspect of 5 could have been fleshed out as the agency of the region's political elites are favored over the fate of its ordinary inhabitants.
This focus on domestic politics interweaves seamlessly with the greater emphasis on factional conflict as the backbone of the game's structure. It navigates a fine line between giving the protagonist some agency in who they decide to align with while also preventing them from quickly rising through the ranks to become leader. Ultimately, Geneforge 5 makes the protagonist work for factions instead of them working for the protagonist and it is all the better for it. The various people you meet hold deeply rooted beliefs informed by their life experiences that are not uprooted just because of the Protagonist's charisma and likewise each faction and their collective tenets are never compromised in the face of the player. Geneforge 5 lets you be an agent and engage in genuinely interesting espionage and diplomacy but it sets a limit to how much the player alone can actually do. Its telling that the only way to get an unequivocally 'bad' ending is to lock yourself off of every factional storyline so that the one thing everyone agrees upon is that you are better off alive than dead. But that's fine because I love being an agent. The range of factions you can join widens in tandem with the range of locations you can access. First you're limited to being the lackey of Shaper Rawal in the Whitespires and then Agent Astoria of the Mera Tev and many more beyond that. You quickly find yourself caught between several factions at a time. Furthermore, several quests revolve around an item sought out by multiple interested parties and a definitive choice has to be made that impacts factional reputation. Even beyond those quests, nearly every opinion you express and quest you do gradually increases hidden formulas and moulds how other factions see you. That sounds rather banal given how common 'reputation' is in sandbox rpgs but there's a refreshing minimalism to it in 5. It's a more organic approach to choice and consequence that eschews arbitrarily filling up a meter and instead a more gradual and uneven self-fashioning that naturally opens up some doors whilst closing others.
The factional conflict comes into full bloom in the second half of 5 when you gain access to Southern Terrestia and thus all five factions. Unfortunately there is a slight lessening of quality after the halfway point that was not present in Geneforge 4. The first half of 5 is densely built and interconnected, the Whitespires, the Mera Tev and Okaveno Fens is densely interconnected in both geography and questlines so that you are always doing something meaningful that affects something else. There is still some of this in the Storm Plains and Dera Reaches but these regions are overall sparser and lacking in the careful attention to detail demonstrated earlier. At least the factions are as interesting here as in the Northern Terrestia. Whereas the somewhat more sheltered Mera Tev has allowed Astoria to parlay with the Rebels, the Storm Plains are the frontline of the Rebellion and its defender Alwan, returning from 3 and 4, has become more idea than person in his uncompromising and fanatical defence of traditional Shaper ideals while his colleague further south experiments with a plan that reveals Shaper politics at their most nakedly fascistic and genocidal. Though I wish there was just a bit more here in terms of density the second half of 5 shows how rich and multifaceted this fictional universe has become and the ease in which it facilitates the playstyles and ideological leanings of the many types of players this series has accumulated.
I was somewhat disheartened playing through 5 knowing that there would be no more Geneforge after it. Yet when I reached the credits I felt the same sort of satisfaction that I associate with a good series of books that comes naturally to a fitting conclusion. There could have been a Geneforge 6 but what purpose would it really serve? This series reinvigorated my love of rpgs after a long period of time where I thought I had outgrown them. There were ups and downs but across my hundreds of hours playing this series I never grew exhausted with it the same way I grew exhausted after only 30 hours of Starfield. Even though there will never be a new Geneforge there will be remakes and more significantly replays where I can enjoy these games in whole new lenses. And even then I'll be able to cherish the many wonderful memories I have made with this series. There's so much more I could talk about like all the effort that was put into playing as a Servile or the other stupid stuff I talked about in my logs. I barely even mentioned the gameplay (its quite unbalanced)! I guess I'll conclude this overstuff review with something sincere.
Thank you Jeff Vogel.
"The characters in this history are all gone now. But the results of their struggles, of the risks they took, the fears they overcame, and the decisions they tried to make wisely. the product of their labors continues to this day.
For us to understand, to endure, and, if needed, to change."
2021
A soft gel and a hard tank.
Two things combine to make a 'Gel tank'!
Does anyone remember the cool enemy dialogue that would play over the platforming in Revenge of Meta Knight from Kirby Super Star? Does anyone want a run and gun with a consistent enemy cast that chew the fat while you play through stages? If so, Gel-Tank is a delightful if somewhat derivative 4 (it was actually 8 according to Steam) hours romp. The fundamentals here are fine if somewhat unpolished, I had consistent controls issues and there was a nasty softlock that made me reply a late game stage two times, but I really got a kick out of the great lengths the devs went to in order to characterize your one man response to an occupying force. Like there's one stage where you, a slime in a tank, have to momentarily abandon your tank form to climb a sheer cliff while enemy helicopters try to destroy you. its a fun bit of gameplay but there's this funny little vignette happening alongside it where the baddies are convinced that you've fallen into their trap and this time they'll defeat you but then there's an awkward silence when you reach the top unscathed. And when you beat a stage you can just chat with the inhabitants of that environment you just liberated. It's cute! A little sprinkle of novelty that goes a long way towards making the experience so charming. This one really punched above its weight.
Two things combine to make a 'Gel tank'!
Does anyone remember the cool enemy dialogue that would play over the platforming in Revenge of Meta Knight from Kirby Super Star? Does anyone want a run and gun with a consistent enemy cast that chew the fat while you play through stages? If so, Gel-Tank is a delightful if somewhat derivative 4 (it was actually 8 according to Steam) hours romp. The fundamentals here are fine if somewhat unpolished, I had consistent controls issues and there was a nasty softlock that made me reply a late game stage two times, but I really got a kick out of the great lengths the devs went to in order to characterize your one man response to an occupying force. Like there's one stage where you, a slime in a tank, have to momentarily abandon your tank form to climb a sheer cliff while enemy helicopters try to destroy you. its a fun bit of gameplay but there's this funny little vignette happening alongside it where the baddies are convinced that you've fallen into their trap and this time they'll defeat you but then there's an awkward silence when you reach the top unscathed. And when you beat a stage you can just chat with the inhabitants of that environment you just liberated. It's cute! A little sprinkle of novelty that goes a long way towards making the experience so charming. This one really punched above its weight.
2011
My replay of Final Fantasy XIII earlier this year dismantled my long standing prejudices against it while affirming my belief that it is a deeply inconsistent piece of art where all of its creative intent, a lean, character focused narrative set against the backdrop of a rich and vast cosmology, crashed against the walls of the Crystal engine and a rush to release a complete product. Floating player pathways over gorgeous environments that you never really interact with outside of Gran Pulse. A world that excluding the six protagonists and some codex entries is dead and non-existent. Besides the character work and battle system every component of Final Fantasy XIII reveals the title's deep inconsistency.
Replaying Final Fantasy XIII-2 not long after likewise has dissuaded me from seeing it as a 'return to form' that rejects its predecessor and instead treating with it as conversant with its predecessor. Whereas XIII's were unintentional, I believe XIII-2 embraces inconsistency as its central throughline in ways that make its similar constraints a real thematic strength.
The environments are more open but fundamentally they are still largely dead and incoherent spaces devoid of people (outside of Caius and the two leads) and lived in places. This sense of unreality lends an essential texture to the unraveling of time and space and gradual destruction of the Fabula Nova Crystalis cosmology. The central progression conceit, non linear travel through time portal, serves to disunify and break up the world in contrast to say Chrono Trigger's goal to achieve the opposite. The cited goal of resolving paradoxes is a pyrrhic task in which new ones are often created and the Antagonist(s) own comments on Serah and Noel's time travel foreshadows the game's conclusion. Whilst each individual area is more times often than not, annoying in terms of level design, the ways in which they are accessed is deeply thrilling and mysterious. Its been so long since I last played that I had the pleasure of wondering where I'd end up next when finding time-gates and making the boundary between mandatory and optional content ambiguous gives a nice sense of wonder to everything you find.
That it does that whilst retaining most of XIII's strength made this a very pleasant replay for me. The narrative is more concise and to the point having only two protagonists and a fun and charismatic antagonist who is consistently present. And collecting XIII's baroque flavor of FF monsters is the perfect addition to XIII's excellent battle system. I guess what slightly dampens all this is that it while it inherited XIII's strengths, it still inherited some of its weaknesses. It was made with less people on less time using an engine that was difficult to work with. Load times are frequently long and a combination of invisible spaces and sluggish movement make the act of traversal annoying and even worse when too frequest random encounters and back and forth sidequests are thrown into the mix.
I really loved Final Fantasy XIII-2's ending back then and even now I see it as emblematic of its greatest strengths. The most bleak and sincerely tragic conclusion of any Final Fantasy game underscored by a relatively happy vocal theme. Consistently inconsistent.
Replaying Final Fantasy XIII-2 not long after likewise has dissuaded me from seeing it as a 'return to form' that rejects its predecessor and instead treating with it as conversant with its predecessor. Whereas XIII's were unintentional, I believe XIII-2 embraces inconsistency as its central throughline in ways that make its similar constraints a real thematic strength.
The environments are more open but fundamentally they are still largely dead and incoherent spaces devoid of people (outside of Caius and the two leads) and lived in places. This sense of unreality lends an essential texture to the unraveling of time and space and gradual destruction of the Fabula Nova Crystalis cosmology. The central progression conceit, non linear travel through time portal, serves to disunify and break up the world in contrast to say Chrono Trigger's goal to achieve the opposite. The cited goal of resolving paradoxes is a pyrrhic task in which new ones are often created and the Antagonist(s) own comments on Serah and Noel's time travel foreshadows the game's conclusion. Whilst each individual area is more times often than not, annoying in terms of level design, the ways in which they are accessed is deeply thrilling and mysterious. Its been so long since I last played that I had the pleasure of wondering where I'd end up next when finding time-gates and making the boundary between mandatory and optional content ambiguous gives a nice sense of wonder to everything you find.
That it does that whilst retaining most of XIII's strength made this a very pleasant replay for me. The narrative is more concise and to the point having only two protagonists and a fun and charismatic antagonist who is consistently present. And collecting XIII's baroque flavor of FF monsters is the perfect addition to XIII's excellent battle system. I guess what slightly dampens all this is that it while it inherited XIII's strengths, it still inherited some of its weaknesses. It was made with less people on less time using an engine that was difficult to work with. Load times are frequently long and a combination of invisible spaces and sluggish movement make the act of traversal annoying and even worse when too frequest random encounters and back and forth sidequests are thrown into the mix.
I really loved Final Fantasy XIII-2's ending back then and even now I see it as emblematic of its greatest strengths. The most bleak and sincerely tragic conclusion of any Final Fantasy game underscored by a relatively happy vocal theme. Consistently inconsistent.
In contrast to my protracted ramblings on prior Geneforge games, my thoughts on Geneforge 4 are quite uncomplicated. It's simply the most imaginative, well paced and most tightly designed Geneforge game. After three games of build up the Great Rebellion is finally here and with it comes an rpg conceptualised as a military campaign rather than just an adventure. Despite time and space ballooning to cover half a continent instead of an island, the pacing is brisk. Conceptualising the Player as a soldier of dubious loyalties rushing to the last Rebel base at their lowest point gives its linearity an affirming forward momentum instead of the typical back and forth meandering endemic to this genre. Accompanying it is a more assymetric and 'unfair' approach to difficulty where obstacles are almost guaranteed to annihilate you if approach conventionally. Neary every region is a distinct macro puzzle that initially seems insurmountable, the many minefields of Ilya Province for instance, until you press every single advantage and play as nasty as the opposition. There was nothing more cathartic than killing the mad leader of the Fens, Monarch, after a long and gruelling advance against his endlessly respawning minions. And despite this being the fourth entry in the series, or maybe because of that, the stage by stage level design is of the highest quality thus far and tightly edited in ways foreign to most rpgs. There are are more creative ideas and encounters packed in Ilya Province than there are in all of Starfield's cosmos. Its crazy how Vogel drew new life out of the same backgrounds and sprites he's been using for a decade but that's Geneforge 4 in a nutshell. Notwithstanding all of its other virtues, its deliciously pulpy and gritty tone, late game twists, it is its mastery over its own withered technology that make it among the best rpgs I've played. Geneforge 4 is the triumph of design over technology.
This one was really frustrating to play. I ended up really enjoying and appreciating what Colorgrave achieved with their previous title, Prodigal, and I'm not a 2D zelda guy! But I am a 2d platformer guy and I wouldn't have thought Colourgrave never made one before with how smooth and technical the moveset of Belle and Chime is. And they better married the aesthetic to the more meandering slice of life elements. Prodigal looked fine if somewhat generic but Curse Crackers commits to pastel blues, whites and pinks that make it snug and pleasant to play. There's so much to appreciate but unfortunately Curse Crackers embraces the my pet peeve as far as 2D platformers go: collectibles. Instead of designing stages that would make the nuanced verbset of Belle and Chime sing, they are instead stuffed with 'secrets' that never amount to anything more than hugging and hitting every wall for an invisible entrance. Although the last couple of worlds do offer some thrilling gauntlets, the levels in this game never amount to more than indistinct and shapeless stop and start affairs. And they're all stitched together by a large yet mostly barren SMW-styleworld map that only ever served to disperse the little community whose interactions I got the most enjoyment out of in contrast to Prodigal's compact little burg tying its inhabitants together. The fact that a lot of the cozy slice of life and post game content is tied behind completion nearly poisoned the well for me. I was relaxed and content while playing Prodigal but I was never able to get into a similar sweet spot with Curse Crackers. The ingredients were there but what they cooked was not to my taste. This one was disappointing.
Finished my third playthrough with the same smile on my face when I first discovered Rondo years ago. I replay this game and Symphony every Halloween and at this point the holiday (bad as it is in rural Ireland) is just an excuse to look forward to Richter backflipping through enemies. It's not my favorite (Symphony) nor what I would consider the most holistically designed castlevania (1986) but is the funniest, the happiest and satisfying game in the series.
I don't think I've played any other platformer with such a jovial spirit. This game is funny and makes me laugh out loud in ways most games never have. Death's blank stare when you destroy his scythe. The "oohs" that the zombies make in Stage 2. Triggering the trap in Stage 4 to send swarms of fleamen towards you only for most of them to jump to their deaths into spikes. Even deaths and game overs are deflated by how hilarious the contexts they are placed in. And the cutscenes. I love Richter's hearthy laugh when Annette insists on joining him in defeating Dracula. Or Annette's rant against Dracula. Castlevania has always drawn from the camp inherent in old horror stories however Rondo of Blood is the first title to really embrace and have fun with that mythos. It's a game that constantly asks you to laugh alongside it without the slightest degree of irony or cynicism when you fight an undead ninja farmer.
Every stage is a carnival, each procession of enemies and obstacles acting in tandem pushing and pulling with Richter to the beat of the dance tunes. Yet Rondo is more looser and playful in its adherence to the Classicvania gauntlet. Whereas prior games contextualise stages as avenues for action, Rondo of Blood imagines its stages as places and asks players to do the same to access its hidden content.
How Rondo of Blood treats hidden content ties with Super Mario World for ny favorite implement of secrets in a platformer. Now, 'secrets' in platformers have been codified into a formula established by Yoshi's Island and, ironically enough, Symphony of the Night. Moving into suspicious looking level geometry to make your completion number go up rather than genuinely novel discoveries that change how you engage with the game. Every secret in Rondo of Blood is contextualised uniquely within its stage. Figuring out that the spiked balls can be severed from their chains and then experimenting with that to destroy parts of the lower level geometry is more a interesting and satisfying discovery process than anything in subsequent igavania.
That you are rewarded with completely original stages and a whole new playable character with her own cutscenes and flavor is the cherry on top. It makes every new playthrough Rondo completely personalised and different and different from the last. It might be the mist replayable Castlevania in that regard outside of Aria of Sorrow. It certainly shares that game's spirit of generosity.
There are many other wonderful things that I could write about Rondo of Blood. Richter's movement and the enemy design alone could command pages worth of content. Honestly the Rondo of Blood official guide artwork better summises the ethos of this game that I love about it so much. Until next Halloween.
I don't think I've played any other platformer with such a jovial spirit. This game is funny and makes me laugh out loud in ways most games never have. Death's blank stare when you destroy his scythe. The "oohs" that the zombies make in Stage 2. Triggering the trap in Stage 4 to send swarms of fleamen towards you only for most of them to jump to their deaths into spikes. Even deaths and game overs are deflated by how hilarious the contexts they are placed in. And the cutscenes. I love Richter's hearthy laugh when Annette insists on joining him in defeating Dracula. Or Annette's rant against Dracula. Castlevania has always drawn from the camp inherent in old horror stories however Rondo of Blood is the first title to really embrace and have fun with that mythos. It's a game that constantly asks you to laugh alongside it without the slightest degree of irony or cynicism when you fight an undead ninja farmer.
Every stage is a carnival, each procession of enemies and obstacles acting in tandem pushing and pulling with Richter to the beat of the dance tunes. Yet Rondo is more looser and playful in its adherence to the Classicvania gauntlet. Whereas prior games contextualise stages as avenues for action, Rondo of Blood imagines its stages as places and asks players to do the same to access its hidden content.
How Rondo of Blood treats hidden content ties with Super Mario World for ny favorite implement of secrets in a platformer. Now, 'secrets' in platformers have been codified into a formula established by Yoshi's Island and, ironically enough, Symphony of the Night. Moving into suspicious looking level geometry to make your completion number go up rather than genuinely novel discoveries that change how you engage with the game. Every secret in Rondo of Blood is contextualised uniquely within its stage. Figuring out that the spiked balls can be severed from their chains and then experimenting with that to destroy parts of the lower level geometry is more a interesting and satisfying discovery process than anything in subsequent igavania.
That you are rewarded with completely original stages and a whole new playable character with her own cutscenes and flavor is the cherry on top. It makes every new playthrough Rondo completely personalised and different and different from the last. It might be the mist replayable Castlevania in that regard outside of Aria of Sorrow. It certainly shares that game's spirit of generosity.
There are many other wonderful things that I could write about Rondo of Blood. Richter's movement and the enemy design alone could command pages worth of content. Honestly the Rondo of Blood official guide artwork better summises the ethos of this game that I love about it so much. Until next Halloween.
2005
This review contains spoilers
One of the most interesting executions of uncomfort within the structure of an RPG. Whilst Geneforge 1 and 2 teased the dysfunction and tension in the Shaper enslavement of their creations, 3 shows this setting finally exploding into the beginnings of a rebellion. The conflict begins immediately as in lieu of a gradual tutorial, your Shaper school is destroyed and you must fight your way out past the wreckage of your home and dead comrades to play the rest of the game. Its an evocative introduction that serves as a microcosm of the overall game's structure of claustrophobia, confusion and chaos.
The Ashen Isles, the setting of Geneforge 3, are noteworthy for two reasons: their linearity and their being part of the core of the Shaper empire. 1 and 2 let players loose within forbidden lands and peripheries beyond Shaper authority. However, your progress within the Ashen Isles is a linear tour through the imploding Shaper core where paranoid and outnumbered authorities have restricted travel and information in a desperate effort to contain the Rising as if its a pandemic. It is a setting pervasive in paranoia and uncertainty where you the Player are constantly deprived of the most valuable tool the series has traditionally offered: choice.
To reach the next island in the chain requires convincing those who control ships to grant you access, whether it be a Shaper or a Rebel. In either case, it means becoming embroiled in the Rebellion. Prior games let you choose your faction but 3 confidently restricts you to two only choices for every dilemma you face: the Shapers or the Rebels. By not presenting a 'third path' or any other nuanced position, the game is better able to make players seriously grapple with its core ethical dilemma: something that's tied in to the content designed for both factions.
Geneforge 3 differs from many other rpgs I've played in the sort of quests it apportions to both factions, something that has made it the most controversial game in the series. To be a rebel means destabilising and eventually overthrowing Shaper control by any means, to the point that civilian casualties become an inevitable side effect of this strategy. Conversely, joining the Shaper empire means simply defending the status quo against the creations spawned to destroy Shaper fortresses and settlements. It takes the traditional rpg quest archetype of defending settlements from monsters and substitutes that fantasy for a messy insurgency. Based on forum readings, choosing to play as Rebels was deemed too unpleasant for many while others criticised the portrayal of Rebels as a cheap strawman of chaotic murderers. Yet the starkness reveals a crucial truth that I don't often see in media concerning rebellion: the inherent inequality in conflicts between the states and insurgents. Its not just that the Empire has a greater industrial capacity and pool of resources to draw upon, rather it is their cultural hegemony that is most crucial. The Shapers have enjoyed unimpeded authority for so long that they have successfully convinced many of their subjects that their power structures are natural rather than unnatural and just rather than unjust. Thus the act of rebellion means not just opposing individual Shapers and their armies but also a wider society that has become comfortable with the Shaper's simple maxim: law and order under our rule, or uncontrollable chaos. To be a creation within this system is to denied even the chance to negotiate with it, only complete subjugation is tolerated. One of the main factions in Geneforge 1 & 2 were the Awakened, a group of people who sincerely believed that creations could co-exist as independent beings alongside Shapers. In a sense they were the closest thing the Geneforge games had to a middle of the road option. They are never mentioned in Geneforge 3, so complete was their destruction at the hands of Shapers. Geneforge 3 is not interested in saving face for the player or offer an ideal compromise, it demands in uncompromising terms that the player either upholds the oppressive system of Shaper control or violently dismantle it.
Indeed, intelligent creations are somewhat invisible for much of Geneforge 3's journey, at least until the last two islands. Rather for the first three islands Geneforge 3 offers a different perspective as you largely interact with a Shaper civil society under deep stress. These communities are paradoxically subject to the absolute authority of Shapers where defiance means death yet are also consistently failed by their Shaper masters and so a diversity of survival strategies begin to emerge influenced by class and space. On Greenwood Isle where your journey begins, it least settled and most marginal of all the Shaper colonies and that lack of deep roots has made local citizens engaged in menial labour more reliant on the few Shaper authorities present on the island and so seek to keep their heads down. For others the isolation traditionally offered a meaningful way to withdraw from Shaper society completely and the Rebel attacks both accentuate and threaten this. Harmony Island is in most respects just as marginal however its swamps hold one valuable resource: herbs vital for Shaper alchemy and magic. Thus, most of the populace are gatherers and farmers, a labour force engaged in work that is harsh, dangerous and poorly rewarded by Shapers at the best of times. And when the Shaper authorities on the island choose to retreat to the main settlement instead of protecting the livelihoods of the populace, revolt becomes their survival strategy thus creating a messy three way conflict on the island. Dhonal's Island is different from these marginal territories, being the affluent capital of the archipelago. Here the Shapers are at their strongest and offer reliable protection to the island's population who are largely involved in empire wide commerce and manufacturing. It is no surprise that the people of Dhonal's Island are most stringent in their support of the Shapers and most hostile towards any act of rebellion. Dhonal's Island are the platonic ideal of the Shaper Empire, a submissive peaceful populace watched over by steadfast wardens, and consequently the most extreme and destabilising acts of the Rebel playthrough take place here. By showing such a diverse array of lived experiences, Geneforge 3 gives context and texture to your choices similarly to how the many pasts of Sucia Island flavoured the player journey in Geneforge 1.
How Geneforge 3 enforces linearity at the expense of the player's convenience to explore how unequal power structures and scarcity of choice create exceptional acts of opposition is easily the best thing about the game. Alas its novel ideas are contrasted by an explorative loop that barely iterates on its predecessors and in some ways actually regresses. Travel between islands is strictly limited to a single poorly drawn boat sprite that only operates for that specific pair of islands. Thus, in the end game travelling between the final island and the third island, something that is required multiple times, means staring at multiple loading screens on top of any uncleared zones. Its a slog that undercut and muddies the elegance of Geneforge's zone system.
The macro and micro level design of these islands is also the least interesting in the series, something that became especially apparent as I moved on to Geneforge 4. In theory, 3's linearity should have created more distinct and focused spaces and journeys. And while each island may have a unique visual identity, I never really had to treat them as unique environments on their own terms. Take the second major location, Harmony Island. It is an inhospitable swamp slowly being flooded with hostile creations yet despite being slightly bigger, the gameplay loop of resolving its problems was identical to the tutorial island. I traversed an indistinct web of zones where I killed hordes of enemies to make them green. The story of Harmony Island, a place where local workers and gatherers had revolted in desperation and frustration at the inability of shapers to protect their meagre homes, was completely divorced from the actual experience of traversing the place. The only exception to this was Dhonal's Island, the embattled and fortified Shaper capital of the archipelago whose attritional and corridor-like geography accentuates the treks through its battlefronts and enemy fortresses to reach the source of hostile creations.
In his famous GDC talk Jeff Vogel noted in relation to Geneforge 3's production that 'he was lazy', that he had slacked off and made something that was too similar to the prior games. That statement is somewhat ironic to me as Geneforge 3 is nothing like its predecessors. Warts and all, it is a singular experience in its deviation from the design language of not just its predecessor but also its own genre. It is restrictive where most rpgs are open, it is disempowering towards the player whereas most rpgs are empowering and uncompromising in the limited choices it doles out to them. And why wouldn't it? I don't think there's a better way to depict the beginnings of a systemic wide rebellion which no individual can truly control, the player included.
The Ashen Isles, the setting of Geneforge 3, are noteworthy for two reasons: their linearity and their being part of the core of the Shaper empire. 1 and 2 let players loose within forbidden lands and peripheries beyond Shaper authority. However, your progress within the Ashen Isles is a linear tour through the imploding Shaper core where paranoid and outnumbered authorities have restricted travel and information in a desperate effort to contain the Rising as if its a pandemic. It is a setting pervasive in paranoia and uncertainty where you the Player are constantly deprived of the most valuable tool the series has traditionally offered: choice.
To reach the next island in the chain requires convincing those who control ships to grant you access, whether it be a Shaper or a Rebel. In either case, it means becoming embroiled in the Rebellion. Prior games let you choose your faction but 3 confidently restricts you to two only choices for every dilemma you face: the Shapers or the Rebels. By not presenting a 'third path' or any other nuanced position, the game is better able to make players seriously grapple with its core ethical dilemma: something that's tied in to the content designed for both factions.
Geneforge 3 differs from many other rpgs I've played in the sort of quests it apportions to both factions, something that has made it the most controversial game in the series. To be a rebel means destabilising and eventually overthrowing Shaper control by any means, to the point that civilian casualties become an inevitable side effect of this strategy. Conversely, joining the Shaper empire means simply defending the status quo against the creations spawned to destroy Shaper fortresses and settlements. It takes the traditional rpg quest archetype of defending settlements from monsters and substitutes that fantasy for a messy insurgency. Based on forum readings, choosing to play as Rebels was deemed too unpleasant for many while others criticised the portrayal of Rebels as a cheap strawman of chaotic murderers. Yet the starkness reveals a crucial truth that I don't often see in media concerning rebellion: the inherent inequality in conflicts between the states and insurgents. Its not just that the Empire has a greater industrial capacity and pool of resources to draw upon, rather it is their cultural hegemony that is most crucial. The Shapers have enjoyed unimpeded authority for so long that they have successfully convinced many of their subjects that their power structures are natural rather than unnatural and just rather than unjust. Thus the act of rebellion means not just opposing individual Shapers and their armies but also a wider society that has become comfortable with the Shaper's simple maxim: law and order under our rule, or uncontrollable chaos. To be a creation within this system is to denied even the chance to negotiate with it, only complete subjugation is tolerated. One of the main factions in Geneforge 1 & 2 were the Awakened, a group of people who sincerely believed that creations could co-exist as independent beings alongside Shapers. In a sense they were the closest thing the Geneforge games had to a middle of the road option. They are never mentioned in Geneforge 3, so complete was their destruction at the hands of Shapers. Geneforge 3 is not interested in saving face for the player or offer an ideal compromise, it demands in uncompromising terms that the player either upholds the oppressive system of Shaper control or violently dismantle it.
Indeed, intelligent creations are somewhat invisible for much of Geneforge 3's journey, at least until the last two islands. Rather for the first three islands Geneforge 3 offers a different perspective as you largely interact with a Shaper civil society under deep stress. These communities are paradoxically subject to the absolute authority of Shapers where defiance means death yet are also consistently failed by their Shaper masters and so a diversity of survival strategies begin to emerge influenced by class and space. On Greenwood Isle where your journey begins, it least settled and most marginal of all the Shaper colonies and that lack of deep roots has made local citizens engaged in menial labour more reliant on the few Shaper authorities present on the island and so seek to keep their heads down. For others the isolation traditionally offered a meaningful way to withdraw from Shaper society completely and the Rebel attacks both accentuate and threaten this. Harmony Island is in most respects just as marginal however its swamps hold one valuable resource: herbs vital for Shaper alchemy and magic. Thus, most of the populace are gatherers and farmers, a labour force engaged in work that is harsh, dangerous and poorly rewarded by Shapers at the best of times. And when the Shaper authorities on the island choose to retreat to the main settlement instead of protecting the livelihoods of the populace, revolt becomes their survival strategy thus creating a messy three way conflict on the island. Dhonal's Island is different from these marginal territories, being the affluent capital of the archipelago. Here the Shapers are at their strongest and offer reliable protection to the island's population who are largely involved in empire wide commerce and manufacturing. It is no surprise that the people of Dhonal's Island are most stringent in their support of the Shapers and most hostile towards any act of rebellion. Dhonal's Island are the platonic ideal of the Shaper Empire, a submissive peaceful populace watched over by steadfast wardens, and consequently the most extreme and destabilising acts of the Rebel playthrough take place here. By showing such a diverse array of lived experiences, Geneforge 3 gives context and texture to your choices similarly to how the many pasts of Sucia Island flavoured the player journey in Geneforge 1.
How Geneforge 3 enforces linearity at the expense of the player's convenience to explore how unequal power structures and scarcity of choice create exceptional acts of opposition is easily the best thing about the game. Alas its novel ideas are contrasted by an explorative loop that barely iterates on its predecessors and in some ways actually regresses. Travel between islands is strictly limited to a single poorly drawn boat sprite that only operates for that specific pair of islands. Thus, in the end game travelling between the final island and the third island, something that is required multiple times, means staring at multiple loading screens on top of any uncleared zones. Its a slog that undercut and muddies the elegance of Geneforge's zone system.
The macro and micro level design of these islands is also the least interesting in the series, something that became especially apparent as I moved on to Geneforge 4. In theory, 3's linearity should have created more distinct and focused spaces and journeys. And while each island may have a unique visual identity, I never really had to treat them as unique environments on their own terms. Take the second major location, Harmony Island. It is an inhospitable swamp slowly being flooded with hostile creations yet despite being slightly bigger, the gameplay loop of resolving its problems was identical to the tutorial island. I traversed an indistinct web of zones where I killed hordes of enemies to make them green. The story of Harmony Island, a place where local workers and gatherers had revolted in desperation and frustration at the inability of shapers to protect their meagre homes, was completely divorced from the actual experience of traversing the place. The only exception to this was Dhonal's Island, the embattled and fortified Shaper capital of the archipelago whose attritional and corridor-like geography accentuates the treks through its battlefronts and enemy fortresses to reach the source of hostile creations.
In his famous GDC talk Jeff Vogel noted in relation to Geneforge 3's production that 'he was lazy', that he had slacked off and made something that was too similar to the prior games. That statement is somewhat ironic to me as Geneforge 3 is nothing like its predecessors. Warts and all, it is a singular experience in its deviation from the design language of not just its predecessor but also its own genre. It is restrictive where most rpgs are open, it is disempowering towards the player whereas most rpgs are empowering and uncompromising in the limited choices it doles out to them. And why wouldn't it? I don't think there's a better way to depict the beginnings of a systemic wide rebellion which no individual can truly control, the player included.
2022
What a feast of a game. Four playable characters with their own distinct movement and action verbs, nearly 30 stages, a whole world map with lovely hubs where npcs update their dialogue after every story event and an entirely optional arena with minigames and unique challenges. I'm in love with this game's sonic adventure-esque maximalism, I was grinning from ear to ear in the final area when it kept dropping new gorgeously animated and creatively distinct stages in front of me to consume. This game is so confident in itself that it never felt self indulgent or akin to a slog. One stage is an all out war between enemy factions which you're free to participate in whilst the next has you barely escape hordes of enemies to assemble a mech and then proceed to destroy them like the pests they are. It boggles my mind that a game with such nuanced, satisfying and responsive controls and high volume of high quality content can be made by a small team of people whilst larger studios flounder to achieve either of those two. Playing both this and Spark the Electric Jester 3 has sort of convinced me that the Indie is the definitive future of platforming.
Maybe the best rpg on the system. The World Ends with You gets that rpgs are about connecting with other people and growing together. To this end, almost every line of code and piece of the physical hardware is used in insightful and playful ways. Upon completion I was satisfied but also bittersweet. I wish I had played this when I was Neku's age and I wish I had learned the same lessons he did. Nonetheless I don't regret my time in Shibuya.
2021
After a victorious struggle with one of the world's legendary monsters, the mists subsided and he left its watery primeval lair. My Beowulf stumbled into a nearby church where he was promptly put down by a gunslinging priest. Like Skyrim with guns.
2003
This review contains spoilers
Geneforge 2 starts with you, an apprentice Shaper, accompanying your master on a fact finding mission to the failing Shaper colony of Drypeak. The initial thrill of adventure is dulled by scenes of industrial decline; abandoned mines and dusty farmsteads overseen by distrusting adminstrators who view your presence as an intrusion. And then you stumble upon a hidden tunnel whose exit causes your world map to quadruple in size, your master is suddenly kidnapped by mysterious assailants and you, an inexperienced apprentice, find yourself entangled in the lethal politics of a vast hidden world.
The above introductory sequence with its bait and switch reveal of the game world and overarching narrative is perhaps the highpoint of Geneforge 2's ambitions to supercede its predecessor whilst also demonstrating its inability to do so. The Drypeak Mountains are a bigger, fantastical game world with more factions than its predecessors and systemically the new creations, spells and abilities provide both variety and balance. Yet for all its additions, 2 is unfortunately subtractive in one key area. Geneforge 1's Sucia Island was a layered, thoughtfully designed space whose many pasts and nuanced inhabitants created a convincing and multifaceted virtual culture. The Drypeak Mountains fare poorly in comparison as although it serves the same function as Sucia Island, the individual inhabitants, towns and locales lack the same attention to detail and depth. Sucia Island felt like a place whilst the Drypeak Mountains felt more like a video game sandbox. This ends up being more significant as in spite of all its additions, 2 still completely adheres to 1's sandbox structure with the exception of its creative introduction. The Drypeak Mountains, stripped of the rich atmosphere and sense of mystery that made exploring Sucia Island so compelling, is simply a less engaging space to inhabit for dozens of hours. More stuff was not enough to overcome a sense that it was in service to an experience that felt inessential.
2 fares better when it operates outside of its need to compare with its predecessor. Whilst 1 demonstrated the iniquity of Shaper authority largely through its negligence and deliberate maladminstration, 2 does so by showing their awful capacity for violence. Just as 1 was a character study of the the world the Serviles built for themselves, 2 thoroughly investigates the consequences of that world's deliberate atomisation. The Shapers' thorough pogrom of Sucia Island have left generational wounds of trauma and perpetual dislocation and have consequently created a consensus among all creations that they will strike before the Shapers get a chance to find them. Though 1 is the first entry, 2's sense of escalation makes it feel like the beginning of the destructive war between Shapers and Creations that defines this series.
It is a more balanced and feature rich game than what came before with unique themes of communal disruption and revolutionary escalation, however its inability to step outside its predecessor's sandbox structure to better relay its sense of escalation makes it a less considered game overall.
The above introductory sequence with its bait and switch reveal of the game world and overarching narrative is perhaps the highpoint of Geneforge 2's ambitions to supercede its predecessor whilst also demonstrating its inability to do so. The Drypeak Mountains are a bigger, fantastical game world with more factions than its predecessors and systemically the new creations, spells and abilities provide both variety and balance. Yet for all its additions, 2 is unfortunately subtractive in one key area. Geneforge 1's Sucia Island was a layered, thoughtfully designed space whose many pasts and nuanced inhabitants created a convincing and multifaceted virtual culture. The Drypeak Mountains fare poorly in comparison as although it serves the same function as Sucia Island, the individual inhabitants, towns and locales lack the same attention to detail and depth. Sucia Island felt like a place whilst the Drypeak Mountains felt more like a video game sandbox. This ends up being more significant as in spite of all its additions, 2 still completely adheres to 1's sandbox structure with the exception of its creative introduction. The Drypeak Mountains, stripped of the rich atmosphere and sense of mystery that made exploring Sucia Island so compelling, is simply a less engaging space to inhabit for dozens of hours. More stuff was not enough to overcome a sense that it was in service to an experience that felt inessential.
2 fares better when it operates outside of its need to compare with its predecessor. Whilst 1 demonstrated the iniquity of Shaper authority largely through its negligence and deliberate maladminstration, 2 does so by showing their awful capacity for violence. Just as 1 was a character study of the the world the Serviles built for themselves, 2 thoroughly investigates the consequences of that world's deliberate atomisation. The Shapers' thorough pogrom of Sucia Island have left generational wounds of trauma and perpetual dislocation and have consequently created a consensus among all creations that they will strike before the Shapers get a chance to find them. Though 1 is the first entry, 2's sense of escalation makes it feel like the beginning of the destructive war between Shapers and Creations that defines this series.
It is a more balanced and feature rich game than what came before with unique themes of communal disruption and revolutionary escalation, however its inability to step outside its predecessor's sandbox structure to better relay its sense of escalation makes it a less considered game overall.