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05/01 - Brutal Legend
07/01 - Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
13/01 - Sludge Life
17/01 - AER: Memories of Old
19/01 - Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition (Human - Nero/Dante)
05/03 - CrossCode: A New Home
14/03 - Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
17/03 - Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (100cc)
02/04 - Drakengard (Endings A-D)
14/04 - Drakengard 2 (Ending A)
28/04 - Drakengard 3 (Endings A-D)
02/05 -
Rain
After that whole ordeal with Drakengard 3, I decided to look in to PS3 emulation, and so this was my first time delving in to that. It seemed to work basically perfectly with this game as far as I could tell, apart from the occasional very minor stutter at some moments where I assume it was compiling shaders. So it wasn't even that the game itself was having trouble running, but it was simply loading in assets it needed. Pretty surprised it ran so well, and without any noticeable bugs or inaccuracies. Given how tricky PS2 emulation can be, and how the PS3's architecture is similarly idiosyncratic, as well as PS3 emulation being much younger and running more graphically demanding games, I was fully expecting this wouldn't be possible on my PC. Although I'm sure things won't be the same for every PS3 game.
As for the game itself, it's one I've had my eye on for a while. I always felt like it was something I should get around to but never managed to. Being a fan of stuff like Ico, SotC, and many of the indie games that take inspiration from them, this being another game from Sony in that vein seemed like it would be right up my alley. And sure enough, it was.
While I don't think it competes with the best of this style of game, it was still really enjoyable and stood out for having its own identity too. The concept of playing an invisible character who can be seen when the rain falls on them is really neat. In terms of the puzzles it facilitates, they are mostly pretty simple and not the most original, but there are some good moments. Usually they involve sneaking around to avoid some monster, who also follows the same invisibility rules as you. So there are situations where they can move in an out of visibility as well, or a large non-aggressive creature can be used as cover to hide from other enemies. It can lead to a little bit of fiddly navigation though, as it can be very hard to pick out where your character is in dry areas sometimes, only being able to see your tiny footprints. That is also not helped by the times when you are accompanied by an AI partner as well since it can be hard to pick out which footprints are yours. But for the most part, the mechanics do their job, and provide a very unique visual presentation to deliver them.
And speaking of visuals, this game is extremely pretty. The environments look very impressive. It's set in what appears to be an early 20th century French city of sorts, with all the old buildings and such, on a rainy night where the warm glow of the few street lights cut through the hazy dimness and reflect off the puddles below. The set design is great too, with the fixed camera angles always showing some really picturesque and atmospheric scene. The sound design of the calming rain backing the delicate and minimalist piano score just sets the mood of everything perfectly as well. The game uses
Clair de Lune as its theme song, so that gives you an idea of the tone it's going for. Later on in the game it also transitions partially to a more surreal looking world, where the buildings change to be more abstract and brutalist, in and almost Escher-esque way, as it becomes clear the game takes place in some sort of dream world.
The story was very light, and sort of predictable for this sort of game, but still charming. It's clearly some sort of metaphor for confronting the fear of the unknown. There's a particular monster that stalks you throughout the game, literally called "The Unknown", and as you journey further in to the city away from places that your character would be familiar with, that is when the world starts changing to look odd and oppressive, with the narration stating that this is "the world of The Unknown". This creature is hurt by the light, which I took to mean the light of knowledge and familiarity. You know, shedding light on something makes it become known and not scary anymore. The story is also bookended by some watercolour styled slides that are really nice looking as well. They're the most colourful parts of the game, and the only bits that take place during the day, but the style is a really good way to create the impression of rain in an artistic way too.
As far as I can tell, the people who worked on this haven't done anything since, and a good chunk of them don't appear to have done anything else in games at all. Or maybe they've been hidden away uncredited on some stuff I don't know about. Either way it's a real shame, because some really talented people clearly worked on this, and it shows a lot of potential for hypothetical future projects, yet it looks like that just didn't happen. And even if these people did work on other things at Sony afterwards, given that they recently all but closed down their Japanese development studio completely, I bet that means the door is basically shut on that now. A real shame. Maybe a few of them followed Fumito Ueda or Keiichiro Toyama to their new studios.