I feel like I've had a productive week. My visit to the day job earlier in the week went well and gave me some good ideas on how to move forwards on various things I'm working on, and I've already managed to get started on some of those things. I have, of course, been enjoying the day job a great deal — hopefully that's already abundantly clear — but some of the things that came out of the discussions on Tuesday made me excited for the future. You may not necessarily see obvious results of these yourself, but rest assured I'm pleased with what's going on!
Blue Reflection: Second Light is also proving to be a delight so far. I've played a chapter beyond what I played for the demo a while back now, and it's definitely a huge improvement over the original — which I already liked a whole lot. The mechanics this time around are really satisfying — combat in particular is really fresh and dynamic — and, of course, it's all held together with some excellent characters and a strong narrative.
And, of course, it's almost certainly going to be completely ignored by 90% of the games press. Which is unfortunate, because as with so many games like this, it's exactly the sort of thing that a lot of critics should be falling over themselves to praise — but outside of the biggest names and the indie darling of the hour (Unpacking right now) most writers don't seem willing to look particularly far afield.
Speaking of Unpacking, I thought I'd elaborate a bit on some vague comments I made in my article about it the other day in the name of not spoiling anything (at the publisher's request). I'm beholden to no such embargoes here, of course — but if you're at all interested in playing the game and don't wish to be spoiled, please feel free to stop reading now; this will be the last thing today!
Basically, I wanted to like Unpacking a whole lot, and I do like Unpacking a whole lot — but I also feel it fell massively short of what it could have accomplished with its storytelling. And, to be honest, I'm finding it mildly frustrating that it's being showered with such uncritical praise because the aforementioned 90% of the games press have never played a game that made them feel emotions before.
I don't like feeling like this, 'cause I like the Witch Beam guys a lot and want them to succeed — Unpacking's success will, among other things, determine whether or not they get an opportunity to make a follow-up to Assault Android Cactus, which I'd love to see — but I also kind of feel like people are oddly hesitant to critique Unpacking properly, simply because it's a charming and progressive indie game.
Anyway, I have two real issues with Unpacking. One is that "this story about a female protagonist concludes with them being revealed to be gay and/or trans" (just gay in this case) is an artsy indie game cliché at this point. Obviously it's good for representation and positive LGBT+ blah blah blah… but it's also an incredibly unimaginative "twist" that I saw coming a mile off, particularly with how bleak the sequence where she moves in with the boyfriend is.
That whole sequence is, without a doubt, effective — you're given a really strong sense that you're invading someone's space rather than coming to live alongside them, and it's all muted colours rather than the vibrant pastels the game has been depicted in up until that point — but for it to go down the "well, men are terrible, guess I like girls now" route, which is what it felt like to me, just felt a bit… I don't know… off. Obvious.
I'll reiterate I have no problem whatsoever with LGBT+ relationships in games — hell, the aforementioned Blue Reflection is more explicit about them than pretty much any other semi-mainstream Japanese game I've seen for a long time — but in Unpacking, as I say, it felt clichéd and I guess tokenistic is one way to put it.
This perhaps would have been less of an issue were it not for my second beef with Unpacking, which is that it just fizzles out completely after its last stage. Our heroine and her partner have moved into a nice house and are preparing for a baby to arrive… and then that's it. Roll credits, the pair of them sit looking off into the sunset with the new baby, and there's nothing more.
Apparently I'm very much alone in this, but that didn't feel at all satisfying to me. There was no real "closure"; it was the beginning of a new chapter in the heroine's life and it didn't go anywhere.
What I would have liked to see was a few more stages that explored how the pair of them dealt with the child growing up and eventually moving out — and ultimately, after a number of further stages, taking a look at how one comes to terms with the inevitable passing of a life partner. Now that would have had me bawling my eyes out and declaring this game the absolute masterpiece that everyone else appears to think it is… but that's not what we got.
To be clear, I am very firmly disassociating myself from the people whining on Steam that it's "$20 for 3 hours of gameplay". No. Creative works cost money to produce and the creators of creative works have every right to charge what they feel it is worth. Judging "value for money" on an "hours to dollars" basis is stupid.
My objection to where Unpacking concluded is not about how long it lasted in a quantifiable sense. No; it's about the fact the narrative left me wanting more — and not in a good way. There was a ton of potential to do some interesting and deeply emotional things, and it didn't. So I was disappointed.
It's still worth playing, though. It's beautifully presented, and the ability for the player to be part of the game's creative process by simply playing it is inspired. I'm just not tripping over myself to declare it the most amazing game of the year or anything.
Blue Reflection, on the other hand… well, we'll have to see. Everyone has their own tastes, after all — and it most certainly isn't the first time I've been a lot more interested in something completely different to what the rest of the Internet is losing its mind over!