I’M SORRY. (I’m not sorry.)

I went to see Pacific Rim this evening with my similarly-named friends Tim and Tom. This, along with Akira the other night, means that I’ve officially been to the cinema more times in the past week than I have in the last year.

As for Pacific Rim, it was enjoyable, if cheesy. Good, dumb fun on the surface, but a movie clearly designed with an appreciation — possibly even reverence — for Japanese giant robot anime. Throughout the whole thing, I couldn’t help thinking that the movie might have been better just as a straight-up anime. In fact, partway through the movie, I found myself making mental comparisons with the visual novel Deus Machina Demonbane, with which Pacific Rim actually shares a significant number of similarities.

Lest you’re unfamiliar with Deus Machina Demonbane but have seen Pacific Rim, the former is a visual novel about giant robots battling monsters loosely inspired by the work of HP Lovecraft; the latter is a movie about giant robots battling monsters with too many mouths. Already quite similar, albeit the Lovecraftian twist on Demonbane is a pleasant break from the norm.

Then we have the whole “you need two people to pilot a giant robot” thing, which is present in both Demonbane and Pacific Rim; in the former, the pilot is paired up with a “tome” (in the case of the protagonist, an absolutely adorable personification of the Necronimicon), while in the latter, two people have to “drift” together and share their consciousness, or memories, or something.

Then there’s the fact that the main “hero” robot gets the crap kicked out of it repeatedly, yet somehow always gets repaired to immaculate condition every time, which is present in both works.

And the fact that the giant robots fighting do just as much damage — if not more so — to the places they’re trying to protect than the monsters they’re fighting, which is, again, present in both works.

Demonbane does have a bit of a twist in that the antagonists are given personalities and stories of their own, rather than just being “GRRR ARRGH MONSTERS”. There’s an overall “bad guy” in Demonbane, who is responsible for the Lovecraftian beasts invading our dimension, and there are some truly loathsome “lieutenants” who give the protagonist and the other characters in the story a lot of grief, to say the least.

Also, there is more fucking in Demonbane, while there is none in Pacific Rim, what with it being a 12A and all while Demonbane is an adults-only title. For the most part, the sexual scenes in Demonbane are more horrific than titillating, though; it’s one of those “I can’t fap to this!” games, unless you have some seriously weird tastes. Likewise, you cannot fap to Pacific Rim, but for different reasons.

Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is that if you enjoyed Pacific Rim and you’re open to the idea of playing sexually explicit visual novels, then you should give Deus Machina Demonbane a look. It’s one of the more memorable, well-written visual novels I’ve played in my time, and it’s satisfyingly hefty in length, too, particularly if you go for all the endings.

I am hot and sweaty. I am going to drink something cold and go to bed. Good night.