During the whole Dracula bit I could feel my brain rotting away as I laughed my ass off at the absurdity of it all. I don't think a game ever made me feel like that and I very much doubt that any other will manage it going forward.
The mid-two thousands and the early 2010’s could be considered the what I like to call ‘’RPG-Maker Horror-Narrative Golden Age’’; that’s not say that there haven’t been any games done with the variations of the engine since, games like Omori and even the Fear & Hunger duology quickly come to mind as two great examples of how recent RPG Maker made-in games can still bring something new to the table of the broader indie scene, but even those games are of an entirely different breed. Experimentation was the name of the game, even if there were your usual and classic RPG suspects, the most prolific games from that era are ones that broke de bounds of conventional RPG’s and explored different ways of telling a story beyond the limitations of the turned based combat structure. Sure, a ton (and I mean A TON) of low quality games spawned in this time with the hopes of jumping into the horror bandwagon, and some games are just plain tasteless and don’t really deserve being in the discussion, but even with this overabundance of low effort, the stars that explored the frontiers of narrative-focused gameplay, isometrical horror or just doing whatever they thought it was interesting: Yume Nikki (A game which also inspired an entire sub-genre of fan-games alone), Ib, OneShot, Mad Father and even more polarizing works like To the Moon are all examples of varying results of this; some noteworthy, some are a couple of the most important games of the whole millennial, and in cases like OneShot, some of my personal favorites. It’s also worth mentioning that around this time there was also the presence of ‘’comical/parody’’ games, most of these are generally products of their time and basically time capsules for memes and internet culture for all those years back. My point with this terrible info-dump is to say that it was up to each developer/s what to make, and how most of the best RPG Maker games focus on one thing at a time and thoroughly explore it, and the results mostly being phenomenal… anyway Space Funeral is a game were you kill ghosts by using old movies, the final boss questions the conditions of perfection and how that can tear minds apart, and a Djinn turns you into a fish…so yeah, it is a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle bit weird…
To be honest, and considering I just spat out the most boring Ted Talk possible about the RPG Maker indie scene, it’s only fair that I mentioned that Off (A game which I have yet to play) explored the base ideas of Space Funeral two years prior, that being focusing on bizarre world with and unconventional world and more involved combat compared to its contemporaries, but you see, the difference lies in that, whereas Off used its comedy and bizarreness as a more direct exploration of the fourth-wall and the relationship between protagonist and player, Space Funeral is just FUCKING BATSHIT CRAZY, to a level that I cannot make any funny remarks about it! Like, what I’m gonna say about the fact that you companion is a horse made with horse legs? It’s just a bunch of horse legs, I cannot make the absurd even more absurd! I CANNOT EVEN MAKE FUNNY PUNS WHEN THE MAKE ALREADY DOES THEM FOR ME, THIS GAME IS MY KRYPTONITE, I CANNOT STUPIDIY THE ALREADY DUMB OH GOD HELP M-
This game is, and looking at reviews from different places I’m glad that this notion is accepted, stupid, it’s an incredibly stupid game, so it might perplex you when I also say that this may be one of the most clever games I’ve played in all the year. It’s an unabashedly stupid piece of art, from the moment you open it is gross as it is beautifully dumb; a nonsensical world with no rhyme or reason, mind-boggling lay-outs and maps that have the colors of skunk vomit, characters that are as repulsive as they are comically sincere (seriously, everyone in this fucking game is so direct that reaches absurd levels, and I’m all in for it), the music ranges from pretty good sounding midis to absolute crazy tunes and possibly quite the scariest track I’ve heard in a while and sprite work that is either actually pretty cool and detailed or the most made-in-paint thing you’ll see in your life. It’s stupid… but the game perfectly knows it is. And by that I don’t mean that there’s a huge twist and it becomes super ‘’meta’’ and turns out the brain rot had a point, no, Space Funeral does tackle interesting themes and we’ll get to that, but from beginning to the very end, this game is non stop absurdity, even if it moments were it seems like there should be a more serious moment or the tone should shift, the game manages to still become a joke about itself: the fucking final boss has an incredibly interesting speech, and it decides it to end with the monument of a phrase that is ‘’Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven….. motherfuckerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!’’. You know that friend that sends you stupid unfunny memes but you both now they are stupid and that’s where the ironic hilarity comes from? Now imagine if that friend did LSD and also was Socrates. That is Space Funeral. A game so content with its own foolishness that you cannot do nothing but be marveled by it, so… itself, unlike anything there could be at the time, both script wise and visually, it is one of those RPG Maker games that decided to do whatever it wanted, but it went far beyond I could had possibly imagined. There’s a reason I opened this review talking about the Dracula bit, it’s the perfect mixture of funny and uncomfortable that Space Funeral pulls off so well time and time again, and it’s what makes it so distinct and what made me so incredibly sad that I didn’t play it sooner.
It's even unconventional on how it tackles its themes; I originally thought that this game would be about maybe grief, considering the title, the main character’s sprite and the abundance of skulls and coffins, but that couldn’t have been further away from the truth, and in fact you could argue that it mocks tackling that subject at a certain point! Instead, Space Funeral seems more interested on focusing on battling a criminal lord drawn in paint using Bibles, going to the CRAP store and catching elves, you know, your usual Space Funeral stuff, but it does show snippets of a larger theme in some spare moments, and it all culminates with the ending. Remember when I said that didn’t go ‘’meta’’ at any point? Well, that was both a truth and a lie. Space Funeral seems to seek to tackle not only what ‘’perfection’’ truly means and implies, but the relationship between a creator and its work. I don’t want to get too much into spoilers, but this game does leave on a very interesting note without fully breaking the fourth wall, and even if the result seems to be made better in other games and it feels like too little to late, it was something that I really wasn’t expecting, and hey, maybe the fact it feels rushed or a bit unfocused it’s the point, you never know with this game.
The only thing I have real issues is the combat, not because it’s bad, mind you, and in fact for a game that lasts an hour, it manages to make its encounters feel nuanced and impactful: there’s a huge number of options and skills, a lot of equipment you can find for both characters and it’s very rewarding to learn fast and defeat enemies with the tools the game gives you. However, it’s still a fairly easy game, which I normally wouldn’t have much of a problem with, but that and its short duration made it so there was never a real point where I felt like I needed to use all of my tools or think that strategically, aside from the usual defense drop or heal, and it’s a shame ‘cause the combat seems like a part of the game that was made with genuine intent to be more complex and interesting, but sadly it’s probably the most mind-numbing part about the whole thing.
But, if anything, I’m still ‘’mind-melted’’, Space Funeral reminds me of why I adore exploring weird yet fascinating worlds, and how absurdity and surrealism can make a work so incredibly enjoyable, funny, and even… lovely. That is a weird adjective to use with the game, but hey, the game itself is weird…
… so it kinda fits, huh?
The mid-two thousands and the early 2010’s could be considered the what I like to call ‘’RPG-Maker Horror-Narrative Golden Age’’; that’s not say that there haven’t been any games done with the variations of the engine since, games like Omori and even the Fear & Hunger duology quickly come to mind as two great examples of how recent RPG Maker made-in games can still bring something new to the table of the broader indie scene, but even those games are of an entirely different breed. Experimentation was the name of the game, even if there were your usual and classic RPG suspects, the most prolific games from that era are ones that broke de bounds of conventional RPG’s and explored different ways of telling a story beyond the limitations of the turned based combat structure. Sure, a ton (and I mean A TON) of low quality games spawned in this time with the hopes of jumping into the horror bandwagon, and some games are just plain tasteless and don’t really deserve being in the discussion, but even with this overabundance of low effort, the stars that explored the frontiers of narrative-focused gameplay, isometrical horror or just doing whatever they thought it was interesting: Yume Nikki (A game which also inspired an entire sub-genre of fan-games alone), Ib, OneShot, Mad Father and even more polarizing works like To the Moon are all examples of varying results of this; some noteworthy, some are a couple of the most important games of the whole millennial, and in cases like OneShot, some of my personal favorites. It’s also worth mentioning that around this time there was also the presence of ‘’comical/parody’’ games, most of these are generally products of their time and basically time capsules for memes and internet culture for all those years back. My point with this terrible info-dump is to say that it was up to each developer/s what to make, and how most of the best RPG Maker games focus on one thing at a time and thoroughly explore it, and the results mostly being phenomenal… anyway Space Funeral is a game were you kill ghosts by using old movies, the final boss questions the conditions of perfection and how that can tear minds apart, and a Djinn turns you into a fish…so yeah, it is a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle bit weird…
To be honest, and considering I just spat out the most boring Ted Talk possible about the RPG Maker indie scene, it’s only fair that I mentioned that Off (A game which I have yet to play) explored the base ideas of Space Funeral two years prior, that being focusing on bizarre world with and unconventional world and more involved combat compared to its contemporaries, but you see, the difference lies in that, whereas Off used its comedy and bizarreness as a more direct exploration of the fourth-wall and the relationship between protagonist and player, Space Funeral is just FUCKING BATSHIT CRAZY, to a level that I cannot make any funny remarks about it! Like, what I’m gonna say about the fact that you companion is a horse made with horse legs? It’s just a bunch of horse legs, I cannot make the absurd even more absurd! I CANNOT EVEN MAKE FUNNY PUNS WHEN THE MAKE ALREADY DOES THEM FOR ME, THIS GAME IS MY KRYPTONITE, I CANNOT STUPIDIY THE ALREADY DUMB OH GOD HELP M-
This game is, and looking at reviews from different places I’m glad that this notion is accepted, stupid, it’s an incredibly stupid game, so it might perplex you when I also say that this may be one of the most clever games I’ve played in all the year. It’s an unabashedly stupid piece of art, from the moment you open it is gross as it is beautifully dumb; a nonsensical world with no rhyme or reason, mind-boggling lay-outs and maps that have the colors of skunk vomit, characters that are as repulsive as they are comically sincere (seriously, everyone in this fucking game is so direct that reaches absurd levels, and I’m all in for it), the music ranges from pretty good sounding midis to absolute crazy tunes and possibly quite the scariest track I’ve heard in a while and sprite work that is either actually pretty cool and detailed or the most made-in-paint thing you’ll see in your life. It’s stupid… but the game perfectly knows it is. And by that I don’t mean that there’s a huge twist and it becomes super ‘’meta’’ and turns out the brain rot had a point, no, Space Funeral does tackle interesting themes and we’ll get to that, but from beginning to the very end, this game is non stop absurdity, even if it moments were it seems like there should be a more serious moment or the tone should shift, the game manages to still become a joke about itself: the fucking final boss has an incredibly interesting speech, and it decides it to end with the monument of a phrase that is ‘’Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven….. motherfuckerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!’’. You know that friend that sends you stupid unfunny memes but you both now they are stupid and that’s where the ironic hilarity comes from? Now imagine if that friend did LSD and also was Socrates. That is Space Funeral. A game so content with its own foolishness that you cannot do nothing but be marveled by it, so… itself, unlike anything there could be at the time, both script wise and visually, it is one of those RPG Maker games that decided to do whatever it wanted, but it went far beyond I could had possibly imagined. There’s a reason I opened this review talking about the Dracula bit, it’s the perfect mixture of funny and uncomfortable that Space Funeral pulls off so well time and time again, and it’s what makes it so distinct and what made me so incredibly sad that I didn’t play it sooner.
It's even unconventional on how it tackles its themes; I originally thought that this game would be about maybe grief, considering the title, the main character’s sprite and the abundance of skulls and coffins, but that couldn’t have been further away from the truth, and in fact you could argue that it mocks tackling that subject at a certain point! Instead, Space Funeral seems more interested on focusing on battling a criminal lord drawn in paint using Bibles, going to the CRAP store and catching elves, you know, your usual Space Funeral stuff, but it does show snippets of a larger theme in some spare moments, and it all culminates with the ending. Remember when I said that didn’t go ‘’meta’’ at any point? Well, that was both a truth and a lie. Space Funeral seems to seek to tackle not only what ‘’perfection’’ truly means and implies, but the relationship between a creator and its work. I don’t want to get too much into spoilers, but this game does leave on a very interesting note without fully breaking the fourth wall, and even if the result seems to be made better in other games and it feels like too little to late, it was something that I really wasn’t expecting, and hey, maybe the fact it feels rushed or a bit unfocused it’s the point, you never know with this game.
The only thing I have real issues is the combat, not because it’s bad, mind you, and in fact for a game that lasts an hour, it manages to make its encounters feel nuanced and impactful: there’s a huge number of options and skills, a lot of equipment you can find for both characters and it’s very rewarding to learn fast and defeat enemies with the tools the game gives you. However, it’s still a fairly easy game, which I normally wouldn’t have much of a problem with, but that and its short duration made it so there was never a real point where I felt like I needed to use all of my tools or think that strategically, aside from the usual defense drop or heal, and it’s a shame ‘cause the combat seems like a part of the game that was made with genuine intent to be more complex and interesting, but sadly it’s probably the most mind-numbing part about the whole thing.
But, if anything, I’m still ‘’mind-melted’’, Space Funeral reminds me of why I adore exploring weird yet fascinating worlds, and how absurdity and surrealism can make a work so incredibly enjoyable, funny, and even… lovely. That is a weird adjective to use with the game, but hey, the game itself is weird…
… so it kinda fits, huh?
3 Comments
@C_F It's honestly kind of crazy how far back the RPG Maker scene goes and how much of a temporal distance there is between certain games, like, Yume Nikki is gonna become 20 years old next year, which is nuts. I also started getting into the scene and playing a ton of games in middle and high school too, what a throwback...
Ha. Ha. Ha. Yes! Very good!
C_F
4 months ago