One of those games where I can't see its greatest "flaw" in the moment as anything but a plus in hindsight. At points Portopia is vague and obscure enough to drive you mad. How is anyone supposed to know to search there? How is anyone meant to guess to do that or show that one item at this one place? But what this frustration does is transform what could have been a nice enough detective story into a hypnotic procedural of stasis; an unending loop of the same questions and the same faces, progress never seeming to go anywhere, everything winding back to dead end circles, beautifully reflected in the giant maze of white walls you get lost in during the climax.

It's a game that, whether through frustration or curiosity or glee, inevitably leads to you assaulting suspects for answers. And distressingly...it works.

Okay, asterisk on "you" because one of the many deeply clever things about Portopia is that you, the player character, are not the one who directly does anything. You just tell your subordinate what to do. It's a weird distinction but a VERY important one that raises all kinds of questions w/r/t your role in the story and as the player and what exactly inhabiting a character while playing a game implies narratively.

Anyway, the maze in the basement is without hesitation one of THE great moments in video games. Like, genuinely startling, unsettling stuff. You spend the whole game in menus and simple, colorful illustrations, and then suddenly as you descend below the surface color and life gives way to dead white walls twisting around themselves for an eternity, pathways opening and closing as if the place is alive. It's significant that here is the one time you take actual control. The simplest graphics in the world and yet some of the most effective atmosphere in the medium's history. Like being suddenly sucked into an Akio Jissoji directed nightmare.

One of the most important games of all time thanks to all that it inspired and not an inch of that inspirational power has gone anywhere. Meditative masterpiece. Horii my metaphysical king. Insane stuff