I don't really have a clue how I'm supposed to review this game. I'm not entirely sure who it's for. I didn't even think it would be for me, but it was, and now I'm buying a physical copy of the game just because I think it would be nice to have on my shelf. I have no idea what's wrong with me, but I have an inkling as to why I find it so appealing: It's not often I find a game from this time period that has a unique enough style and concept that I have a hard time finding things to compare it to. In this review, I will still try.
I've never owned a Sega Saturn, nor have I ever been able to read Japanese. Those two things were, for at least a while, something of a prerequisite to play Baroque. However, as of late, there has been something of an effort to translate the game. I presume this is the reason it's been popping up in my Youtube feed via a variety of channels covering this relatively unknown horror roguelike. At first, it seemed like an obvious play. I like horror games. I like roguelikes. I definitely tend to like niche 90's Japanese titles. A quick peek at it definitely caught my attention, as to say that Baroque has a distinct visual style would be something of an understatement. I downloaded a PS1 ISO, patched it up and dove in. I think I ran the dungeon once before this silly thing called life got in the way and I had to put it down.
I came back to it a couple of weeks ago prepared to try and give it another go, when I realized that the Sega Saturn original had been successfully translated only a few days beforehand. At least one person on the Internet has been known to prefer the original version of the game over the Playstation port or the PS2/Wii remake (which is a whole other can of worms). After spending a bit of time with the Saturn version, I was inclined to agree that the visuals had that little extra oomph and ended up playing it start to finish.
The story is definitely one of two main reasons to play this game and I'm honestly kind of hesistant to talk about it in any real detail. The description given at the top of the game's page here seems like a reasonable introduction, but it really doesn't give you a meaningful idea of what you're in for. I'll leave it at this: You get booted out of a lab and into a hellscape of post-apocalyptic industrial noir. Something called the "Great Heat Wave" did this, and you might have also been involved, somehow. An image of an angel gives you a rifle as long as you are tall, and tells you to get to the bottom layer and shoot God. The bottom layer of a massive structure called the Nerve Tower, that is. Yes, you're descending. Don't think about it too hard. Saying any more runs the risk of spoiling the sense of discovery and comprehension that is a core aspect of the Baroque experience, so I'll leave it there.
As to the other reason: Aesthetically, this game is a delight. Your surroundings are dark and dingy and oppressive, composed of metal walls and machinery that does gods know what, vats of liquid and grates and shutters, and everything is connected by cramped and poorly-lit hallways. Where light does exist, it is stark, and everywhere that it fails to find purchase, shadow rules. Ambient tracks ranging from eerie and mystifying to industrial noise to oh dear gods what is that manage to both absorb you and keep you on edge. As you progress downwards, you'll be hounded by freakish creatures known as Grotesques, with a bevy of unique designs that are sure to excite (in one way or another, depending on your tastes). Silent Hill fans are sure to feel right at home here. While Baroque as a whole is fairly light on traditional horror elements, it definitely does a great job of making you feel like you're never truly safe. Whatever horror the gameplay itself doesn't provide is provided plenty of support by the vibes and, of course, the mind-bending story that paints a fairly bleak picture of humanity, but one that isn't entirely without hope.
Artistically, Baroque is an easy A+. But this isn't art class, and games still need to be fun (or at least I feel like they should be). So is it fun? I'm not sure I'm the right guy to be asking on this one. At its core, Baroque is definitely a roguelike. You get one shot to make it through the Nerve Tower, and whether you die or succeed, you go back to the beginning with all of your levels and goodies gone (or at least mostly, but I'll get to that). Of course, where Baroque might differ from some other roguelikes of the era is that death is not only expected but also somewhat required. Each time you start over, you're rewarded with new dialogue and story elements being revealed, which will give you new hints on how to progress. In that sense, your prize for each run is knowledge, which can be a solid motivator if you're into that kind of thing. Otherwise, the only way to actually retain items between runs is to toss them into entities known as Sense Spheres, which will ensure those items will be waiting for you when you return to the surface. You're always guaranteed to encounter at least one Sense Sphere on a full run, and you also get some minor (albeit hidden) stat boosts if you complete a loop, so you if you play well you won't have to walk away completely empty handed.
There's other roguelike elements, too, of course. Floors are randomly generated, although they do follow a certain sort of logic. I'll leave it up to you to figure out the significance of that. There's a variety of eclectic items for you to obtain - swords and coats are probably the most standard of the bunch, while you'll also be able to find fake wings, brands, ampoules, worms, flesh, torturers, bones and "patterns" (read: magical landmines). Each has their own distinct purpose and a wide variety of effects that come along with them. Fake wings are equipment like coats, which typically provide no defensive value but do offer additional effects. Brands are single-use items that let you stamp your body or an item in exchange for a semi-permanent effect. The only way a brand can be removed is through a couple of other, fairly rare effects. Ampoules are basically potions, the effects of which are not necessarily beneficial. Worms can infest your body or a coat, which sounds horrid (and it kind of is) but they are by and large beneficial creatures that can also be merged together into a single grub which can offer twice the benefit. You can only be infested by one worm at a time, though; when adding a new one, the old one must die, and it even leaves a corpse in your inventory. Flesh and hearts are basic restoratives, but offer a sort of risk/reward system where eating them while your HP/VT meters are full increases their cap by a relatively small amount. They can also be found rotten, which means eating them will give you indigestion. Torturers are devices which impact all of the foes in the room and are essential for crowd control. Bones are just that, but they also have unique effects that you can activate by gnawing on them (or tossing them). And yes, patterns are pads which activate an effect upon an entity stepping on top of them, which rarely results in anything good. The broad range of effects amongst items gives a fair amount of strategy to how you can use them to your benefit. For example, you could toss an ampoule generally used for curing blindness at a foe, which apparently was not made for use on Grotesques and inflicts blindness upon them instead. Or you can use a torturer to bring every enemy on the floor to the room you're in, and then you can use another torturer to turn them all into hearts and proceed to feast upon them. Mmmm.
Sometimes items will be unidentified, meaning you'll either have to find a way to identify them or simply test it through various means and take the risk of wasting a very helpful item or accidentally activating a less-than-helpful one.
As far as the actual dungeon-crawling goes, though - it's about as basic as it gets. You progress through the dungeon in a first-person perspective. You have a singular attack button which you use to swing your sword. You can walk forward and back, you can turn, and you can strafe. You don't move particularly fast. Otherwise, you can use items, and that's about it. There are no spells or special abilities or anything of the sort. You have no ranged attacks aside from your items. You level up in a fairly linear manner, with equipping better swords and coats having the largest impact on your overall survivability. As you're not especially tanky otherwise, you're going to need to be a much a trickster hero as you would anticipate a roguelike protagonist to be. Kite foes, toss items, set traps, run when things get hairy. Some enemy types can be maneuvered around once you understand their movement patterns, but just as many others are basically impossible to avoid taking damage from once they're in melee range. Some also impart some surprisingly nasty status effects, which makes facing them in direct combat highly inadvisable unless you have some degree of protection against them. And yeah, there are some situations where you'll be swarmed by an inescapable host of nasties or you'll have precious equipment deleted by traps, enemy tricks, or your own poor judgement. All of this will feel very familiar to roguelike veterans, but the more hands-on approach here feels very one-dimensional. As it stands, the slow movement speed and awkward controls make your trip through the Nerve Tower a fairly tedious experience, and your A button finger will definitely be a bit tired by the time you reach the bottom. There's a few other odd issues: As your foes are 2D horrors living in a 3D world, you can sometimes get blindsided by an enemy you couldn't see because they were living in your character's blind spots. A lot of enemies in the game are weirdly silent, given how cool the game's soundscape is otherwise, which means you'll be getting taken by surprise fairly frequently. It does add to the fear factor, I suppose, and you are given a subtle warning in the way of your heartbeat hastening when an enemy is nearby, so I can overlook it. What's a little less forgivable, though, is the seeming lack of concern for where your character appears and which way they're facing when you descend a floor. It's entirely possible for you to load in facing a wall, with baddies already taking a couple of free swipes while you attempt to turn around. It's a minor annoyance, but considering how difficult managing yourself on later floors can be, it's definitely worth mentioning.
Honestly, it's hard for me to complain too much because Baroque's flaws don't get to overstay their welcome. It's a short affair; one that is made much shorter assuming you're using a guide. As I mentioned before, completing runs or dying is sometimes required to progress, but once you know what to do there's really no barrier to getting further.
After you've reached a certain stage, the game effectively becomes a race to the bottom. To that end, avoidance is the smartest tactic you can employ. So I guess it really is a roguelike! There is room to develop your gear to a point that you can take most of your challengers head-on, so if you would rather play the grinding game, you have that option. In light of that, the biggest issue I have with Baroque really does come down to its relative lack of variety, both with regards to its gameplay and its locales. The scenery does change a bit as you get further along, but I wouldn't say the diversity is so great as to ensure you're oohing and ahhing with each run. If you're spending a lot of time trying to work things out, I could see you getting bored very quickly. Really, the fewer runs you can beat Baroque in, the better.
And that really is a shame, because blind is absolutely the way to go in on this game. Unraveling the mystery of how this twisted world came to be, and your ultimate purpose in it, is definitely Baroque's biggest strength. I absolutely adore a lot of the stylistic choices and the themes on display here. By the time I saw the end credits roll, I felt it was definitely something that would take up a corner of my brain for some time to come. It reminds me a lot of one of my favorite animated films, Tenshi no Tamago - go watch it if you haven't seen it - which centers on a beautiful, ruined world with dark religious undertones. There's a lot of commentary on humanity and our desires and motivators in life. There's also ton of supplemental material surrounding the creation of the game, much of which is documented on the Nerve Tower site, and it shows the creators were definitely passionate about this project. I highly recommend taking a look at it even if you don't necessarily intend to play the game.
All in all, Baroque definitely feels like an experiment to me - one that, while I consider it a success, isn't one I think will appeal to most. If you're the kind of person who likes to immerse themselves in strange worlds with little direction on how to unravel the threads in front of you, I think there's a solid chance you could fall in love with this game. If you're looking for a solid dungeon crawler, or roguelike, or hack and slash, I think you have plenty of better options. Give it a try, and use a guide (also provided on the Nerve Tower site) if fumbling around in the dark proves to be a bit too much. Don't tempt yourself into dispelling all of the darkness, though. There's a lot to love here. Just temper your expectations and know that I don't blame you if it's just not your cup of tea.
Hold Baroque inside yourself.
As one additional note: The PS1 version does technically have more content than the Saturn version, so if that sounds like something that appeals to you...
I've never owned a Sega Saturn, nor have I ever been able to read Japanese. Those two things were, for at least a while, something of a prerequisite to play Baroque. However, as of late, there has been something of an effort to translate the game. I presume this is the reason it's been popping up in my Youtube feed via a variety of channels covering this relatively unknown horror roguelike. At first, it seemed like an obvious play. I like horror games. I like roguelikes. I definitely tend to like niche 90's Japanese titles. A quick peek at it definitely caught my attention, as to say that Baroque has a distinct visual style would be something of an understatement. I downloaded a PS1 ISO, patched it up and dove in. I think I ran the dungeon once before this silly thing called life got in the way and I had to put it down.
I came back to it a couple of weeks ago prepared to try and give it another go, when I realized that the Sega Saturn original had been successfully translated only a few days beforehand. At least one person on the Internet has been known to prefer the original version of the game over the Playstation port or the PS2/Wii remake (which is a whole other can of worms). After spending a bit of time with the Saturn version, I was inclined to agree that the visuals had that little extra oomph and ended up playing it start to finish.
The story is definitely one of two main reasons to play this game and I'm honestly kind of hesistant to talk about it in any real detail. The description given at the top of the game's page here seems like a reasonable introduction, but it really doesn't give you a meaningful idea of what you're in for. I'll leave it at this: You get booted out of a lab and into a hellscape of post-apocalyptic industrial noir. Something called the "Great Heat Wave" did this, and you might have also been involved, somehow. An image of an angel gives you a rifle as long as you are tall, and tells you to get to the bottom layer and shoot God. The bottom layer of a massive structure called the Nerve Tower, that is. Yes, you're descending. Don't think about it too hard. Saying any more runs the risk of spoiling the sense of discovery and comprehension that is a core aspect of the Baroque experience, so I'll leave it there.
As to the other reason: Aesthetically, this game is a delight. Your surroundings are dark and dingy and oppressive, composed of metal walls and machinery that does gods know what, vats of liquid and grates and shutters, and everything is connected by cramped and poorly-lit hallways. Where light does exist, it is stark, and everywhere that it fails to find purchase, shadow rules. Ambient tracks ranging from eerie and mystifying to industrial noise to oh dear gods what is that manage to both absorb you and keep you on edge. As you progress downwards, you'll be hounded by freakish creatures known as Grotesques, with a bevy of unique designs that are sure to excite (in one way or another, depending on your tastes). Silent Hill fans are sure to feel right at home here. While Baroque as a whole is fairly light on traditional horror elements, it definitely does a great job of making you feel like you're never truly safe. Whatever horror the gameplay itself doesn't provide is provided plenty of support by the vibes and, of course, the mind-bending story that paints a fairly bleak picture of humanity, but one that isn't entirely without hope.
Artistically, Baroque is an easy A+. But this isn't art class, and games still need to be fun (or at least I feel like they should be). So is it fun? I'm not sure I'm the right guy to be asking on this one. At its core, Baroque is definitely a roguelike. You get one shot to make it through the Nerve Tower, and whether you die or succeed, you go back to the beginning with all of your levels and goodies gone (or at least mostly, but I'll get to that). Of course, where Baroque might differ from some other roguelikes of the era is that death is not only expected but also somewhat required. Each time you start over, you're rewarded with new dialogue and story elements being revealed, which will give you new hints on how to progress. In that sense, your prize for each run is knowledge, which can be a solid motivator if you're into that kind of thing. Otherwise, the only way to actually retain items between runs is to toss them into entities known as Sense Spheres, which will ensure those items will be waiting for you when you return to the surface. You're always guaranteed to encounter at least one Sense Sphere on a full run, and you also get some minor (albeit hidden) stat boosts if you complete a loop, so you if you play well you won't have to walk away completely empty handed.
There's other roguelike elements, too, of course. Floors are randomly generated, although they do follow a certain sort of logic. I'll leave it up to you to figure out the significance of that. There's a variety of eclectic items for you to obtain - swords and coats are probably the most standard of the bunch, while you'll also be able to find fake wings, brands, ampoules, worms, flesh, torturers, bones and "patterns" (read: magical landmines). Each has their own distinct purpose and a wide variety of effects that come along with them. Fake wings are equipment like coats, which typically provide no defensive value but do offer additional effects. Brands are single-use items that let you stamp your body or an item in exchange for a semi-permanent effect. The only way a brand can be removed is through a couple of other, fairly rare effects. Ampoules are basically potions, the effects of which are not necessarily beneficial. Worms can infest your body or a coat, which sounds horrid (and it kind of is) but they are by and large beneficial creatures that can also be merged together into a single grub which can offer twice the benefit. You can only be infested by one worm at a time, though; when adding a new one, the old one must die, and it even leaves a corpse in your inventory. Flesh and hearts are basic restoratives, but offer a sort of risk/reward system where eating them while your HP/VT meters are full increases their cap by a relatively small amount. They can also be found rotten, which means eating them will give you indigestion. Torturers are devices which impact all of the foes in the room and are essential for crowd control. Bones are just that, but they also have unique effects that you can activate by gnawing on them (or tossing them). And yes, patterns are pads which activate an effect upon an entity stepping on top of them, which rarely results in anything good. The broad range of effects amongst items gives a fair amount of strategy to how you can use them to your benefit. For example, you could toss an ampoule generally used for curing blindness at a foe, which apparently was not made for use on Grotesques and inflicts blindness upon them instead. Or you can use a torturer to bring every enemy on the floor to the room you're in, and then you can use another torturer to turn them all into hearts and proceed to feast upon them. Mmmm.
Sometimes items will be unidentified, meaning you'll either have to find a way to identify them or simply test it through various means and take the risk of wasting a very helpful item or accidentally activating a less-than-helpful one.
As far as the actual dungeon-crawling goes, though - it's about as basic as it gets. You progress through the dungeon in a first-person perspective. You have a singular attack button which you use to swing your sword. You can walk forward and back, you can turn, and you can strafe. You don't move particularly fast. Otherwise, you can use items, and that's about it. There are no spells or special abilities or anything of the sort. You have no ranged attacks aside from your items. You level up in a fairly linear manner, with equipping better swords and coats having the largest impact on your overall survivability. As you're not especially tanky otherwise, you're going to need to be a much a trickster hero as you would anticipate a roguelike protagonist to be. Kite foes, toss items, set traps, run when things get hairy. Some enemy types can be maneuvered around once you understand their movement patterns, but just as many others are basically impossible to avoid taking damage from once they're in melee range. Some also impart some surprisingly nasty status effects, which makes facing them in direct combat highly inadvisable unless you have some degree of protection against them. And yeah, there are some situations where you'll be swarmed by an inescapable host of nasties or you'll have precious equipment deleted by traps, enemy tricks, or your own poor judgement. All of this will feel very familiar to roguelike veterans, but the more hands-on approach here feels very one-dimensional. As it stands, the slow movement speed and awkward controls make your trip through the Nerve Tower a fairly tedious experience, and your A button finger will definitely be a bit tired by the time you reach the bottom. There's a few other odd issues: As your foes are 2D horrors living in a 3D world, you can sometimes get blindsided by an enemy you couldn't see because they were living in your character's blind spots. A lot of enemies in the game are weirdly silent, given how cool the game's soundscape is otherwise, which means you'll be getting taken by surprise fairly frequently. It does add to the fear factor, I suppose, and you are given a subtle warning in the way of your heartbeat hastening when an enemy is nearby, so I can overlook it. What's a little less forgivable, though, is the seeming lack of concern for where your character appears and which way they're facing when you descend a floor. It's entirely possible for you to load in facing a wall, with baddies already taking a couple of free swipes while you attempt to turn around. It's a minor annoyance, but considering how difficult managing yourself on later floors can be, it's definitely worth mentioning.
Honestly, it's hard for me to complain too much because Baroque's flaws don't get to overstay their welcome. It's a short affair; one that is made much shorter assuming you're using a guide. As I mentioned before, completing runs or dying is sometimes required to progress, but once you know what to do there's really no barrier to getting further.
After you've reached a certain stage, the game effectively becomes a race to the bottom. To that end, avoidance is the smartest tactic you can employ. So I guess it really is a roguelike! There is room to develop your gear to a point that you can take most of your challengers head-on, so if you would rather play the grinding game, you have that option. In light of that, the biggest issue I have with Baroque really does come down to its relative lack of variety, both with regards to its gameplay and its locales. The scenery does change a bit as you get further along, but I wouldn't say the diversity is so great as to ensure you're oohing and ahhing with each run. If you're spending a lot of time trying to work things out, I could see you getting bored very quickly. Really, the fewer runs you can beat Baroque in, the better.
And that really is a shame, because blind is absolutely the way to go in on this game. Unraveling the mystery of how this twisted world came to be, and your ultimate purpose in it, is definitely Baroque's biggest strength. I absolutely adore a lot of the stylistic choices and the themes on display here. By the time I saw the end credits roll, I felt it was definitely something that would take up a corner of my brain for some time to come. It reminds me a lot of one of my favorite animated films, Tenshi no Tamago - go watch it if you haven't seen it - which centers on a beautiful, ruined world with dark religious undertones. There's a lot of commentary on humanity and our desires and motivators in life. There's also ton of supplemental material surrounding the creation of the game, much of which is documented on the Nerve Tower site, and it shows the creators were definitely passionate about this project. I highly recommend taking a look at it even if you don't necessarily intend to play the game.
All in all, Baroque definitely feels like an experiment to me - one that, while I consider it a success, isn't one I think will appeal to most. If you're the kind of person who likes to immerse themselves in strange worlds with little direction on how to unravel the threads in front of you, I think there's a solid chance you could fall in love with this game. If you're looking for a solid dungeon crawler, or roguelike, or hack and slash, I think you have plenty of better options. Give it a try, and use a guide (also provided on the Nerve Tower site) if fumbling around in the dark proves to be a bit too much. Don't tempt yourself into dispelling all of the darkness, though. There's a lot to love here. Just temper your expectations and know that I don't blame you if it's just not your cup of tea.
Hold Baroque inside yourself.
As one additional note: The PS1 version does technically have more content than the Saturn version, so if that sounds like something that appeals to you...