Flower, sun and rain it's amazing. being my first Suda game I started it with big expectations based on all the praises Grasshopper studio gets BUT at the same time not knowing at all what this game would deliver, and DAMN. It does deliver.
I think this is the weirdest game I gave 5 starts not because of the tone of the game itself, (even tho it is weird) but because the scope of it is pretty simple and narrow, but it's such a perfectly encapsulated experience, so unique that I couldn't give this one less.
The look of Lospass island pierces your eyes immediately, full of vibrant colors everywhere. Green, blue, red, yellow, pink, all distributed in these paradisiacal scenarios where you somehow feel that it should be buzzling with life, but it is not, it is completely empty, just the sound of the waves, wind and birds as you run. This made me feel like I was walking around in a weird fever dream, all seems unreal but at the same time it is as you would imagine a paradise. It makes all the walking worth it; I didn't get bored when running all sweaty around Lospass dreamy aesthetics at all. I love how Sumio's outfit doesn't match with the vibe at all, these contrasts make him stand out like in a good way.
I find funny that this game being the sequel to TSC, game which is all grim and obscure in its aesthetic, just twists this fact and goes all the way to a flashy paradise look, love it!
As I said before, it is a fever dream, and this doesn't stop just at the view, but it leaks into the people, every encounter is surreal, we limit ourselves when talking to strangers, we have lot of mental rules that ties together to a complex system that runs at every interaction. Here there is not, well, at least to everyone but Sumio. Honestly, I can't wrap my thoughts to describe the dialogue, but it's filled with this wittiness that makes it so engaging, sometimes ironic, sometimes poetic, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes hilarious.
I didn't play TSC nor 25th Ward so ik I'm missing a lot of context to enjoy the plot and world-building EVEN more but i like it just as it is, a mysterious plot that gives you little hints throughout the whole game to keep you engaged and then it just fucks your brain in the best way possible at the very end.
I'm not lying when I say that after beating this game, I've been listening to the OST nonstop throughout the weeks, they accomplished fleshing out the paradise Lospass essence greatly, mixing this classical/famous melodies and making it their own, like, you sometimes compare the original and they barely sound like the same song, because they use the main melody and build over them to give it their own personality, their own touch, music achieves to fusion with the ambience unscathed .
It reminds me of drakengard and how it does this for its own chaotical purpose.
GAMEPLAY...the gimmick is really fun, the idea of searching through the whole guidebook and how you become paranoid of every number you read and how to tie them to an answer is cool. some were oddly specific, and I broke my brain too much but the feeling after seeing 'HIT' is worthwhile.
AND
I'm so Sumio coded... fr 🚬...
I think this is the weirdest game I gave 5 starts not because of the tone of the game itself, (even tho it is weird) but because the scope of it is pretty simple and narrow, but it's such a perfectly encapsulated experience, so unique that I couldn't give this one less.
The look of Lospass island pierces your eyes immediately, full of vibrant colors everywhere. Green, blue, red, yellow, pink, all distributed in these paradisiacal scenarios where you somehow feel that it should be buzzling with life, but it is not, it is completely empty, just the sound of the waves, wind and birds as you run. This made me feel like I was walking around in a weird fever dream, all seems unreal but at the same time it is as you would imagine a paradise. It makes all the walking worth it; I didn't get bored when running all sweaty around Lospass dreamy aesthetics at all. I love how Sumio's outfit doesn't match with the vibe at all, these contrasts make him stand out like in a good way.
I find funny that this game being the sequel to TSC, game which is all grim and obscure in its aesthetic, just twists this fact and goes all the way to a flashy paradise look, love it!
As I said before, it is a fever dream, and this doesn't stop just at the view, but it leaks into the people, every encounter is surreal, we limit ourselves when talking to strangers, we have lot of mental rules that ties together to a complex system that runs at every interaction. Here there is not, well, at least to everyone but Sumio. Honestly, I can't wrap my thoughts to describe the dialogue, but it's filled with this wittiness that makes it so engaging, sometimes ironic, sometimes poetic, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes hilarious.
I didn't play TSC nor 25th Ward so ik I'm missing a lot of context to enjoy the plot and world-building EVEN more but i like it just as it is, a mysterious plot that gives you little hints throughout the whole game to keep you engaged and then it just fucks your brain in the best way possible at the very end.
I'm not lying when I say that after beating this game, I've been listening to the OST nonstop throughout the weeks, they accomplished fleshing out the paradise Lospass essence greatly, mixing this classical/famous melodies and making it their own, like, you sometimes compare the original and they barely sound like the same song, because they use the main melody and build over them to give it their own personality, their own touch, music achieves to fusion with the ambience unscathed .
It reminds me of drakengard and how it does this for its own chaotical purpose.
GAMEPLAY...the gimmick is really fun, the idea of searching through the whole guidebook and how you become paranoid of every number you read and how to tie them to an answer is cool. some were oddly specific, and I broke my brain too much but the feeling after seeing 'HIT' is worthwhile.
AND
I'm so Sumio coded... fr 🚬...
hyenashot
12 days ago
I am so so so so so incredibly warped when it comes to Suda games, particularly the early ones, that I find it genuinely difficult to even express my feelings or reply to others' thoughts on them. I sit and I think about these games for hours on end, rewatching clips when I'm procrastinating or reading about them or replaying them in their entirety. I have a list of interviews that I just read and reread them sometimes for no reason. I struggle to formulate thoughts into words on these games. Like you made a beautiful sand castle of a review on this vast beach of a game but when I try to do the same I find myself overwhelmed by just each and every grain of sand and incapable of choosing which ones to include or exclude in my castle until I have a dilapidated pile of structureless sand.
Suda games are often playable in any order no matter how much of a sequel they are but people often draw a line for FSR saying "Play TSC first!" and I feel like that's generally good advice but I feel like (as you said) FSR really does stand on it's own. Most people suggest skipping Moonlight Syndrome but this game is a direct reply to the theme of paradise within MS and even includes characters and imagery from it. Similarly some of TSC's worldbuilding relies on concepts from Moonlight Syndrome or are, at least, expansions upon them. That is to say that while every game is connected in one way or another, the connections are strange and less like lines and more like webs. Playing TSC will enhance FSR but FSR will also enhance TSC, MS will enhance TSC but FSR will enhance MS, Killer7 enhances No More Heroes but No More Heroes enhances FSR. I played every Suda game in release date order and got a very pleasurable experience from them but when I started replaying them it kinda clicked just how much these games are improved by their reliance on each other even retroactively. It's like saying that to understand the bladder you must first understand the kidneys. My understanding of both relies on the other.
A semi off-handed fun fact, they flew the sound team to Thailand to get authentic ocean waves and bird sounds.
Oftentimes people say that the constant walking is a negative thing but I adore it and I'm happy to see you did too. It's a sort of myth that Suda ventured to make an intentionally annoying game with FSR but I never got annoyed by it during my time- I was lost in paradise amongst Masafumi Takada's kickass beats. Suda does however speak very openly about his inspiration from Twin Peaks (and really all of Lynch's works) and I feel like the dreamy Lospass contrasts the more gritty world of TSC similar to the Red Room's contrast of the mourning titular town. This is Sumio's, and the player's, dream of paradise which is sometimes jazzy, sometimes funny, sometimes random and sometimes scary like a nightmare. In both, Coop and Sumio contrast the dreamy atmosphere by remaining in a full suit at all times. (Sumio's Silver Case Catherine is likely a homage to Diane as well)
A shit ton of Suda's games are about 'paradise' including TSC. The varying tones of the games don't break cohesion due to the varied types of paradise and the many angles that can be taken with the concept. Though I still stand by FSR being very heavily connected to MS and it's exploration of paradise aligning far more with it than TSCs. Though TSC and FSR's paradise are two sides of the same coin.
I think you perfectly encapsulated my feelings on the interactions in the game. This isn't just Sumio's 'dream', he's sharing it with everyone else in paradise. No one adheres to the unspoken social rules because everyone is adherent solely to their own and are comfortable not 'translating' what they're saying for the person they're speaking too. Just expressing what they mean with words that only make sense to them, at times it makes sense to the player and at times it doesn't but you always just understand subconsciously. There's not a moment where you double take and go "what", everything flows and aligns no matter how absurd. Everyone's a poetic, crass, comforting, frightening, funny, repetitious mess even Sumio.
There's a lot of things that "make sense" if you played other games. Sundance is someone who is intertwined with both TSC and Moonlight Syndrome in very different ways but I think everything can be understood or, like, intuited by context with the only difficulty being, like, the random terminology drops (Shelter, Kamui etc) and the very ending. If you feel like you got a good experience out of it then that's what matters!
Masafumi Takada is one of a kind and FSR is some of his best work imo
I could go on for quite some time about the soundtrack itself
Genuinely some of the best comedy in the game comes from the contrived reasons you use Catherine.
"This, uh, fucking mop doesn't work unless you put in a PIN number...Uhh this makes me so mad I want to do a piledriver!"
Look in the guide
"Mask de Janitor once did something known as the Hellfire Piledriver in 1987 against his rival Filthy Lion"
Click on mop
"There's a mystery hiding inside this mop! When hurtling into mystery, mysteries call up more mystery. What is a mystery without mystery when mystery proceeds? Hurtle on toward the ideal of solving all mystery! Open! Catherine! Let's solve this code!"
1987
"HIT"
Biggest dopamine rush of my entire life