Recommended by Squigglydot as part of this list.
Of all the things to turn into a multi-media franchise, Black Rock Shooter has to be one of the more bizarre things to do so. All the way back in 2007, Pixiv user 'Huke' posted a sketch of a girl simply titled "Black Rock Shooter". This would eventually lead to a collaboration between Vocaloid band Supercell and Huke to create a song and music video named after the eponymous sketch, "Black Rock Shooter". The resulting unprecedented success of the music video lead to the creation of a multimedia franchise that, while nowadays, is a relatively obscure property with a mostly dormant fanbase, once ruled as a mainstay of late 2000s-early 2010s weeaboo culture referenced by video games and anime alike, with an OVA, an anime series, and the topic of today's writing, a PSP action-RPG released all the way back in 2011.
Black Rock Shooter: The Game is a third-person rail-shooter/action RPG hybrid about our eponymous Black Rock Shooter fighting an alien menace to save the last remnants of humanity from extinction, and as interesting as that sounds, it's unfortunately dragged down by its own ambition. The story has its moments, being a pretty somber affair that can get get surprisingly dark at times (the whole "saving humanity" thing goes tits-up by the halfway point and things don't really get better for our hero afterwards), but there's a lot of drawn out cutscenes full of fluff and nonsensical expository dialogue that fails to explain anything of worth. The gameplay is novel but it shows all its cards from Hour 1 and never really evolves in terms of strategy or intrigue. The mission based structure and numerous optional challenges suit the handheld ecosystem but often lead to busywork that makes the game feel incredibly padded despite its relatively short length. It's very "one step forward, two steps back" in execution, but in all honesty, the game itself is the least interesting part about Black Rock Shooter: The Game, when its very existence is a much more intriguing topic.
There's something to be said about the intersection of internet media and the mainstream in this specific cultural era, when the internet was still a relatively untested medium for entertainment and anything that saw a modicum of success online would often be poached by bigwigs in an attempt to turn that viral success into real-world profit. It's this line of thinking that could put flash hits like Alien Hominid and Super Meat Boy on official storefronts, or on the other side of the coin, lead to endeavors like "Fred: The Movie" or "The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange", efforts to capitalize on internet stardom before their Fifteen Minutes of Fame expired. In an era before itch.io, modern YouTube, and video streaming, where avenues for smaller creators to publish their work were much more limited, going "official" was simply seen as the only option for any IP, a relic of thinking from before the internet was such an integral part of our lives.
But despite the cynicism I've presented thus far, Black Rock Shooter: The Game has a surprising amount of money and talent thrown at it for being a late PSP budget title, including the writer for Final Fantasy X and Kingdom Hearts II, the director behind Persona 3 & Valkyria Chronicles, and high-budget voice talent like Miyuki Sawashiro. Hell, the very fact it got an official western release (despite being limited to only America and Europe) is nothing short of a miracle. This production information, contrasted with the game's middling reception, makes coming back to Black Rock Shooter: The Game over a decade later feel like discovering the ruins of Ozymandias' works, a once mighty glimpse at a media powerhouse, the ashes of a firework, its luster a mere memory to those around to witness it. But if anything, it serves as a reminder of simpler times, the era of rags-to-riches stories born of the most unlikely of circumstances, the kind of meteoric stardom you see less and less of nowadays as independent publishing venues and thousands of talented artists competing for attention online render the multi-media fame of any other potential Black Rock Shooters more and more of a fantasy as the years go by.
Godspeed you, Black Rock Shooter.
Of all the things to turn into a multi-media franchise, Black Rock Shooter has to be one of the more bizarre things to do so. All the way back in 2007, Pixiv user 'Huke' posted a sketch of a girl simply titled "Black Rock Shooter". This would eventually lead to a collaboration between Vocaloid band Supercell and Huke to create a song and music video named after the eponymous sketch, "Black Rock Shooter". The resulting unprecedented success of the music video lead to the creation of a multimedia franchise that, while nowadays, is a relatively obscure property with a mostly dormant fanbase, once ruled as a mainstay of late 2000s-early 2010s weeaboo culture referenced by video games and anime alike, with an OVA, an anime series, and the topic of today's writing, a PSP action-RPG released all the way back in 2011.
Black Rock Shooter: The Game is a third-person rail-shooter/action RPG hybrid about our eponymous Black Rock Shooter fighting an alien menace to save the last remnants of humanity from extinction, and as interesting as that sounds, it's unfortunately dragged down by its own ambition. The story has its moments, being a pretty somber affair that can get get surprisingly dark at times (the whole "saving humanity" thing goes tits-up by the halfway point and things don't really get better for our hero afterwards), but there's a lot of drawn out cutscenes full of fluff and nonsensical expository dialogue that fails to explain anything of worth. The gameplay is novel but it shows all its cards from Hour 1 and never really evolves in terms of strategy or intrigue. The mission based structure and numerous optional challenges suit the handheld ecosystem but often lead to busywork that makes the game feel incredibly padded despite its relatively short length. It's very "one step forward, two steps back" in execution, but in all honesty, the game itself is the least interesting part about Black Rock Shooter: The Game, when its very existence is a much more intriguing topic.
There's something to be said about the intersection of internet media and the mainstream in this specific cultural era, when the internet was still a relatively untested medium for entertainment and anything that saw a modicum of success online would often be poached by bigwigs in an attempt to turn that viral success into real-world profit. It's this line of thinking that could put flash hits like Alien Hominid and Super Meat Boy on official storefronts, or on the other side of the coin, lead to endeavors like "Fred: The Movie" or "The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange", efforts to capitalize on internet stardom before their Fifteen Minutes of Fame expired. In an era before itch.io, modern YouTube, and video streaming, where avenues for smaller creators to publish their work were much more limited, going "official" was simply seen as the only option for any IP, a relic of thinking from before the internet was such an integral part of our lives.
But despite the cynicism I've presented thus far, Black Rock Shooter: The Game has a surprising amount of money and talent thrown at it for being a late PSP budget title, including the writer for Final Fantasy X and Kingdom Hearts II, the director behind Persona 3 & Valkyria Chronicles, and high-budget voice talent like Miyuki Sawashiro. Hell, the very fact it got an official western release (despite being limited to only America and Europe) is nothing short of a miracle. This production information, contrasted with the game's middling reception, makes coming back to Black Rock Shooter: The Game over a decade later feel like discovering the ruins of Ozymandias' works, a once mighty glimpse at a media powerhouse, the ashes of a firework, its luster a mere memory to those around to witness it. But if anything, it serves as a reminder of simpler times, the era of rags-to-riches stories born of the most unlikely of circumstances, the kind of meteoric stardom you see less and less of nowadays as independent publishing venues and thousands of talented artists competing for attention online render the multi-media fame of any other potential Black Rock Shooters more and more of a fantasy as the years go by.
Godspeed you, Black Rock Shooter.
2 Comments
@Nightblade Amended. Thank you for the kind words as always.
Nightblade
1 year ago