To be fair this looks like something that would happen in Okage.
I’m still so sad someone took my copy by accident, I kind of loved this game when I played it.
Edit:wow the system spit this thread out to me like it was new.
passing by this, which I completely missed out on while reading a Let’s Play, I am now haunted by the possibility that Rosalyn frequently drops references to classic detective fiction which I totally missed, or such references were usually lost in translation, or this was originally a different but presumably equally obtuse reference in the original Japanese
I don’t want to spoil anything, but I feel like the places this game goes in the final chapters are such a carefully-orchestrated swerve that the game deserves some kind of honorary award - the acknowledgement of being massively influential on a subsequent generation of designers and writers, except for the fact that it obviously wasn’t because barely anybody played the damn game, and I’m sure far fewer ever finished it
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Replaying it reminded me just what a strong influence it had on me! It bled into lots of my own story and art ideas in ways i had forgotten about
I knew that i’d taken Rosalyn’s name and elements of her design for one of my characters but i actually nabbed little bits of her characterization too
I agree the story goes to some really fascinating places in the late game. It’s much more melancholy and meta fictional than it first lets on.
I have a bunch more screens i was gonna post when i finished the game (along with some reflections on the story) but the final chapter is one big dungeon, leaning into the game’s most tedious elements, and i haven’t been in the right mood to pick it back up and finish it yet
i was told by somebody years and years ago who played it in both languages that the translation was very faithful for the most part (outside of changing some of the names – luca became ari, rosalee (or something) became rosalyn, etc).
also, zener works doesn’t even acknowledge that this game (or the games they developed prior for the snes and gameboy) ever existed. so there will never be another game like this from them.
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