played october 20th for rpgmaker october
this is one of the few games youll have to pay for that i put on the list (mostly bc i already owned it), n as such it is a game with /serious/ production values. the visuals in general are nice, the music is real good, the prose is sometimes thoughtful in ways that often escape rpgmaker games, and the most impressive thing of all is how i had to constantly remind myself that this game is made is rpgmaker 2003, how difficult alot of what occurs in this game mustve been to program for. this was primarily made, along w quite a few others, by the original fr->en translator of off, and from that you rly get a sense that this is by someone who not just acquired a serious technical knowhow over the years, but an affection for the engine n whats been produced from it to match.
all this to say i didn't really like it in the end. an outcry has the opposite problem of fragment:AM; this is a game w much greater n more ambitious grasp over its engine, and is capable of making some rly crafty decisions w that knowhow (outside of the combat which is so defanged for story purposes as to make it a predictable slog to get thru), and yet is not that interesting at its core. considered prose does not necessarily equal effective writing, n i felt there's not as much to this game's ideas as it likes to think there is. it must seem so sexy to know abt foucault or brecht or whatever but this game just regurgitates the usual 101 shit abt them and acts like its some grand point to make. and it rides so hard on its allegory but its so unchallenging of the audience and itself, even as it tries to drum up some urgency abt not playing into fascists' hands it just doesn't invite any like unique or substantial investigation into what fascism is. as far as rpgmaker goes hello charlotte 3 eats this things lunch wrt its analysis on that front, and that was only one aspect of that game. for an outcry that's like all it has!! ig there's a few bits on how miserable living in vienna is i could kinda like but ultimately, amts to a lot of nothing in an ornate wrapping.
this is one of the few games youll have to pay for that i put on the list (mostly bc i already owned it), n as such it is a game with /serious/ production values. the visuals in general are nice, the music is real good, the prose is sometimes thoughtful in ways that often escape rpgmaker games, and the most impressive thing of all is how i had to constantly remind myself that this game is made is rpgmaker 2003, how difficult alot of what occurs in this game mustve been to program for. this was primarily made, along w quite a few others, by the original fr->en translator of off, and from that you rly get a sense that this is by someone who not just acquired a serious technical knowhow over the years, but an affection for the engine n whats been produced from it to match.
all this to say i didn't really like it in the end. an outcry has the opposite problem of fragment:AM; this is a game w much greater n more ambitious grasp over its engine, and is capable of making some rly crafty decisions w that knowhow (outside of the combat which is so defanged for story purposes as to make it a predictable slog to get thru), and yet is not that interesting at its core. considered prose does not necessarily equal effective writing, n i felt there's not as much to this game's ideas as it likes to think there is. it must seem so sexy to know abt foucault or brecht or whatever but this game just regurgitates the usual 101 shit abt them and acts like its some grand point to make. and it rides so hard on its allegory but its so unchallenging of the audience and itself, even as it tries to drum up some urgency abt not playing into fascists' hands it just doesn't invite any like unique or substantial investigation into what fascism is. as far as rpgmaker goes hello charlotte 3 eats this things lunch wrt its analysis on that front, and that was only one aspect of that game. for an outcry that's like all it has!! ig there's a few bits on how miserable living in vienna is i could kinda like but ultimately, amts to a lot of nothing in an ornate wrapping.