cw: cannibalism, murder, genocide
I'm not necessarily against using events of history for horror. In fact, I'm overall in favor of it. I think La Llorna (the Guatamalan film) is one of the greatest modern horror movies of our era. Detention is a beautiful look at the tragedy and pain of Taiwan's martial law. You can build something incredible from history and pairing it with the rage and terror of horror.
But there's a... tastelessness (no pun intended) to the game's set up. The talking veggies, the dating sim presentation over the murderous cannibalism... it's not presenting itself as a subtle narrative, its just a stupid goofy gimmick. That's not what I take issue with. Its enjoyable enough trash. It thinks its a clever twist game, but its really straight-forward in what it is.
But... placing the narrative within the Holomodor of Ukraine sits wrong with me. Its a heavy historical context and setting it as a motivation for character to start eating each other... Its not a context I would place next to the dating sim parody aspects. There's black comedy and there's using history for horror and there's just pissing on the real genocide and famine that was inflicted on a population for goofs. I could accept some kind of ghost story about the Holomodor victims seeking out revenge or, albeit warily, turning on innocents out of the blind pain of their experiences. Here, its a motive for cannibalism. Its crass. Its disgusting. Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't just shrug this off as the banal MattPat game but... I don't care for this one bit.
I'm not necessarily against using events of history for horror. In fact, I'm overall in favor of it. I think La Llorna (the Guatamalan film) is one of the greatest modern horror movies of our era. Detention is a beautiful look at the tragedy and pain of Taiwan's martial law. You can build something incredible from history and pairing it with the rage and terror of horror.
But there's a... tastelessness (no pun intended) to the game's set up. The talking veggies, the dating sim presentation over the murderous cannibalism... it's not presenting itself as a subtle narrative, its just a stupid goofy gimmick. That's not what I take issue with. Its enjoyable enough trash. It thinks its a clever twist game, but its really straight-forward in what it is.
But... placing the narrative within the Holomodor of Ukraine sits wrong with me. Its a heavy historical context and setting it as a motivation for character to start eating each other... Its not a context I would place next to the dating sim parody aspects. There's black comedy and there's using history for horror and there's just pissing on the real genocide and famine that was inflicted on a population for goofs. I could accept some kind of ghost story about the Holomodor victims seeking out revenge or, albeit warily, turning on innocents out of the blind pain of their experiences. Here, its a motive for cannibalism. Its crass. Its disgusting. Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't just shrug this off as the banal MattPat game but... I don't care for this one bit.
9 Comments
this took me the fuck out. what on earth
I think if it was content to just BE a goofy slasher game, it'd be a serviceable time. But when you have goofy rpg fights over a character saying "We never should have left Ukraine if this is what awaits us".... its just so foul
they actually say that? the fuck?
They never say the word Holomodor but its set in the 1930s and they do say "we escaped Ukraine" multiple times + talk about starving farms and etc. Its bad.
awful. i get being edgy but that is just foul
This game is kind of sad because I think some of the horror art in genuinely kind of scary, but the chompettes are very annoying and the dating sim aspect is not needed. Society has to move on from ddlc.. and of course, they could of been running away from Ukarine without the setting having to be within a real life tragedy, that was insensitive.
This is a pretty good horror game for when you just want to make fun of something with your friend though
This is a pretty good horror game for when you just want to make fun of something with your friend though
I actually had the distinct thought of how it took the scare effects of DDLC but didn't... understand what made those scare effects work? Like, the character Antoni, when consumed with hunger, gets the evil scratched out face and the bolded text. But that worked in DDLC because it symbolized characters being rewritten or twisted by the narrative. In Cooking Companions, giving them those spooky effects mean... nothing. They're still starving in the woods and still considering eating each other and we see them lash out without those spooky effects. So the only purpose of ripping the DDLC effects is for the purpose of using the DDLC imagery.
Its weird.
Its weird.
this game is like that video of matpat talking about the great depression and finishing with "but there was one thing that could lift their spirits... freddy fazbears pizzeria"
appreciations
1 year ago