This review contains spoilers
An Outcry is one of those few games which I feel like they are not for me at all, but I played out of emotional masochism.
This is a turn-based RPG maker game with a high emphasis on its themes. It is a game which condemns neutrality and equals it to cowardice. The only true characters are those which are broken, struggling, confrontational against evil and living true joy out of the few moments of mental peace they find.
Commodity is seen as ignorance, people misgendering the character because they would rather not understand what the fuck is an enbi and how it would shake their understanding of identity in general, or worse, out of evil and despise of the unnamed's nature.
The obviously neonazi crow army is not portrayed as persons, but a force of nature made flesh: birdness, despise of everything different, eventual massacre after the late realization that everyone is in their own different, ultimate moral death and fixation on their dangerous goals, no matter how much hypocrisy, cowardice, violence and intimidation it takes to achieve it. They don't have a clear ideology, nor do we have clear what makes for a bird, the only thing you know is that perhaps nobody around truly belongs within them despite their promises.
Not taking action and ignoring the outcry is taken as existential dread, as an outside force robbing the Unnamed's uniqueness and voice, perhaps in an attempt to bring it closer to the player. But unlike other games where neutrality is granted a pat on the back, this game takes it as an illness because of which everyone Aster loves dies or ends up hating them. The game looks specifically at you and condemns you for robbing the game of its purpose and voice, of the immersive empathic factor it tried to project, and turns it around by breaking the 4th wall to attack you.
As a largely coward person who is still allured by neutrality, this game felt like it was trying to instir a change within me. It comes to mind the sentence of Hbomberguy "Gamers want political games, and precisely those complaining about politics in games are the ones who wish politics in them the most." I don't know if this game will do any of it within me, but at least it is a empathy door to the frustration minorities feel against the condescendancy of their peers. I apologize to them for not being able to be truly there for them.
As such, and reflecting that, this game shall remained unscored by someone who doesn't truly understand what it conveys nor did its apparent message reach. The review I made on steam was void yet possitive, for I appretiate this game's vibe, so hopefully the spoiler tag and this website serve as a shelter of my true thoughts.
This is a turn-based RPG maker game with a high emphasis on its themes. It is a game which condemns neutrality and equals it to cowardice. The only true characters are those which are broken, struggling, confrontational against evil and living true joy out of the few moments of mental peace they find.
Commodity is seen as ignorance, people misgendering the character because they would rather not understand what the fuck is an enbi and how it would shake their understanding of identity in general, or worse, out of evil and despise of the unnamed's nature.
The obviously neonazi crow army is not portrayed as persons, but a force of nature made flesh: birdness, despise of everything different, eventual massacre after the late realization that everyone is in their own different, ultimate moral death and fixation on their dangerous goals, no matter how much hypocrisy, cowardice, violence and intimidation it takes to achieve it. They don't have a clear ideology, nor do we have clear what makes for a bird, the only thing you know is that perhaps nobody around truly belongs within them despite their promises.
Not taking action and ignoring the outcry is taken as existential dread, as an outside force robbing the Unnamed's uniqueness and voice, perhaps in an attempt to bring it closer to the player. But unlike other games where neutrality is granted a pat on the back, this game takes it as an illness because of which everyone Aster loves dies or ends up hating them. The game looks specifically at you and condemns you for robbing the game of its purpose and voice, of the immersive empathic factor it tried to project, and turns it around by breaking the 4th wall to attack you.
As a largely coward person who is still allured by neutrality, this game felt like it was trying to instir a change within me. It comes to mind the sentence of Hbomberguy "Gamers want political games, and precisely those complaining about politics in games are the ones who wish politics in them the most." I don't know if this game will do any of it within me, but at least it is a empathy door to the frustration minorities feel against the condescendancy of their peers. I apologize to them for not being able to be truly there for them.
As such, and reflecting that, this game shall remained unscored by someone who doesn't truly understand what it conveys nor did its apparent message reach. The review I made on steam was void yet possitive, for I appretiate this game's vibe, so hopefully the spoiler tag and this website serve as a shelter of my true thoughts.