First off, I'll have to postpone the final part of Idiot Night Volume 3 again because, while I have a bit of free time right now, I'm going to rant about what I consider is one of the best stories I have encountered, not only in a while, but in my life as a videogame enthusiast. Few times I have felt such strong emotions as I follow a character and take decisions that affect the outcome of his or her adventure. Feelings that range from joy, calm and anger to even uneasiness, anxiety, disgust and even outright revulsion at what I am presented with. This is one of those few times I have felt all of that in a single adventure. This is definitely the eeriest game I have made time aside for, and is also one that has left me with a mixed aftertaste once I attained what I believe is the ultimate ending. I could be wrong, the story has so many branches that I may very well be in the wrong ending, just like I suspect.
This game is NOT getting a release anywhere outside Japan. The reason is simple. Censorship laws, the current climate of moralist twerps that think their idea of right and wrong is absolute and other problems like a lack of market for visual novels will keep this where it is. Limited to that country. I obtained a copy thanks to a relative that comes and goes, and I think he will want it back soon...
Now, let's talk about the story.
When we begin the game, everything is explored from a first person perspective. The main character is a young man named Keisuke Takato (I'm following western naming order). He finds himself in a white room. The floors are tiled, the walls lack features and the ceiling has what appear to be cameras or at the very least electronic sensors of some kind. Upon exploring the strange facility he is thrust into, he encounters six other females. Natsuki Aoi, a teacher, Rika Makiba, an underclasswoman, Miyako Andou, a classmate, Rinne Byakuya from some other class, Kanae Hokari, a childhood friend and finally Nemu Manaka from the same class.
A synthetic voice tells them through a speaker that they have been brought there to play a game They will be subjected to a set of five tests and that if they fail in succeeding or try to circumvent the rules, the result will be the death of them. One of the girls, Miyako, begins to protest about the criminal nature of the actions taken upon them. The light is abruptly cut and when it finally returns, they find themselves missing one. Miyako. They are then instructed to go to an adjacent room, where they find her strapped to an electric chair. The girl is subsequently electrocuted in a brutal fashion, burning her head, blood coming out of her eyes, nose and mouth. An example has been made and they are then told to vacate the room and go to the main room, where a pillar covered with screens and a window showing a room luxuriously furnished on the other side are the only things that make it different to the other ones.
The rules of the "game" are unceremoniously thrust upon them. Pass each test by ANY means possibly set by the organizers. This, being an eroge (a Japanese contraction of the words Erotikku Ge-mu, Erotic Game), is about sex... in a varied set of forms. Keisuke is called Facilitator and the selected female is referred to as Keyhole and the instructions with the assigned equipment provided are referred to as the Key. Before you complain, know that I rolled my eyes too, but there is a reason for that. There are five tests, and there are five doors that supposedly separate everyone inside from their freedom. Upon clearing each test, they approach that freedom that was taken from them. Or so they are told.
The personality of each character is very distinct. Kanae, knowing keisuke from childhood is caring, understanding and caring for his mental state. Natsuki being his teacher is understanding of everyone's predicament and the risk they are in after witnessing what happened to Miyako. Rinne acts detached at first, but demonstrates a profound understanding of not only the situation, but of the personalities of each and every person around her, included Keisuke. Rika is immature and selfish. Tries to stick to the person she sees as the mentally strongest, knowing she herself lacks in that aspect. Nemu, the final girl, is the polar opposite of Kanae. Cold, uncaring and showing a complete lack of morals, even enjoying the suffering of others, as well as her own. This twisted mindset presents itself as soon as they are given their first task.
Keisuke is to have sex with ANY of the women in the room. He gets to choose with whom. It doesn't matter who. Failure to comply will result in the death of everyone. This evidently goes against his moral code, but when he is about to protest, the image of the electrocuted and bleeding Miyako flashes before his eyes, causing him to stop in fear for his life.
This is the first of the different choices one is forced to take and definitely the one that caught me and made me curious enough to continue. It was not the idea of picking whoever I wanted. The sole idea of picking a random girl and forcing her disgusted me, fortunately none of them, except Rika were really against it, since they pretty much understood what situation they were in, and the skip feature of the game helped a lot in the cases that was not the case and my stomach was about to turn upside down.
Once the selection screen appeared, I noticed Kanae was suspiciously absent. That confused me, but I imagined that was for a reason. In some of these games, some of the routes are kept from being accessible because they contain key elements of the story that can detract from other routes. That meant that the unwilling choice was among Rinne, the stoic one, Rika, the selfish one, Natsuki, the mature one and Nemu, the cold and callous one. I was already then in the shoes of the character. His choice was mine to take and I had a feeling of anger towards Nemu for her proposal. The obvious fact that this was a game made the choice somewhat easier. I picked Nemu in what is probably the most externally guided choice I have made in a game. The developers appealeded to a possible sense of morality and feeling of anger that could discern between reality and fiction. I feel like I had my hand moved by someone else that was pulling MY emotional strings.
Upon choosing Nemu, she and Keisuke were ordered to go to the next room and by whatever means have sex. Nemu readily took her clothes off and offered herself to Keisuke. The whole scene was odd to say the least. The trial was supposed to be planned by whoever was on the other side of the electronic system to be a rape. However, in that room, a rape seemed to be going on, yes. Only it seemed to me like Nemu was the rapist, not Keisuke. Now, I don't claim to know or have even a notion of how rape feels, but that whole scene left me confused and with a tinge of disgust in my throat. I paused for several minutes to assimilate that amount of information. But the confusion didn't end there. As Nemu straightened her clothes and Keisuke stood up with a feeling of confusion, Nemu blurted what would only serve to confuse me further. That it wasn't a rape. They were just two people trying to survive within only two options. Obedience or death. She then told him that the next time he HAD to pick her, as her enjoyment of the whole thing had been great and left with a smile. This eased several of my subsequent choices, but also made me feel revulsion over the whole thing. BUT... I was already hooked in the story. I didn't want to stop. My curiosity pushed me further and further.
Now, I'm not going to describe how the whole game went on detail by detail. That'd take me a long time and I don't feel like it, not to mention that in the final route, Kanae's, the story takes a tremendous turn to What The Fuck Land and presents several tremendous plot twists, some of which are not just ingenious, but absolutely brilliant with hints about them scattered through the game, making no sense until you see them happen, and once they do, they only serve to make the story deeper, painful, even horrific, but also endearing and with what I interpreted as a message.
The game encourages subsequent playthroughs and has varying scenarios, depending on who you choose. You see more of one character or another, depending on your choices. It's like changing points of view a little. You continue seeing things through Keisuke's eyes, only the one that hangs around more is the one you pick the most. In this first case, Nemu.
As the story went on and on, I began seeing more of her, but she still disgusted me greatly. Deep down, she was presented as a survivalist. A cold pragmatist in an extreme situation. When the option to go to the elegant room to rest presented itself, she took it without doubting while Keisuke gave it up to Rika, who complained about wanting to use it no matter what. As things continued, she began to show affection towards Keisuke, but her essential survivalist behavior always remained. Even after witnessing Keisuke's efforts to save her from a machine shooting knives with his body, she still remained a survivalist. Her first question upon being freed was "Why did you do that, if you knew you could be killed!?" Altruism seemed to be an alien thing to her character.
The second portion of the story is outside the White Rooms. Depending on who you chose at the beginning, you can get a seemingly good or bad ending. The bad ending is almost always death, with two female protagonists having no inherent good ending. When there is a good ending, it remains good, until you get to see how things really are in Kanae's route. What began as the most enjoyable route, since Kanae always seemed genuinely supportive, even loving and willing to do whatever it took to remain alive herself as well as keep everyone else away from harm, in the second portion turned into a situation full of pain, despair, frustration, fear and even death, but at the very end, was about the choice one could make about life, and one that disturbed me greatly and is what I consider one of the peaks of my experience with videogames. A simple, yet deep question.
If you can choose between a blissful dream and a painful reality, which one do you choose?
In the dream, the one you love is there with you, life is good and you get to experience the fullest extent of the bliss you can get from it, despite being limited. Reality, however, is harsh, painful and you suffer from the loss of what you had, but you also have the choice to make it better by struggling against that which oppresses you.
I ended up picking the latter and there was no good ending. Only a series of repetitions that seemed to go on forever, until Keisuke began waking up again and then the credits rolled.
The ending appears ambiguous and cryptic and it definitely is. By the end, I felt a feeling of sorrow, pain and disgust at everything that Keisuke went through. About how the people he knew were either not there, not what they appeared to be, were lost to him or the choices he had to make under the threat of death. However, I also was left with an interesting feeling of endearment towards this mostly faceless character because every step he took, he took it with a deep motivation of altruism. His refusal to let people die, even to the point of breaking his own self into a million pieces and his ultimate longing for something as simple as living his own life.
I cannot stress how deeply this game has made me feel. Like other visual novels, this game is limited in its graphics. All you get is stills of the characters in different poses to show their state and static backgrounds, but every character expresses something with both their illustrations and the incredible work of their voice actresses (only the heroines are voiced). The background illustrations is the mostly usual fare of Japanese visual novels. Well drawn and well painted backdrops that show great detail. Still, one of the highlights of this game is its musical score. The background music is limited in its number, going as much as 14 tracks for background music. Yet, the quality of this soundtrack is such that the eerie feeling of this game remains and is one of the most emotionally charged soundtracks I have had the chance of listening to while going through it. The main theme, is even better. It evokes feelings of despair, fear, loneliness, but also has a lyrical quality that encapsulates every single aspect of the game, like that fear, loneliness, pain and isolation as well as the greatest aspects of the main character.
So far, this one visual novel is my absolute favorite, toppling others I have had the chance to play, like Infinite Loop on the PSP or Tsukihime and Fate/Stay Night on the PC and even a longtime favorite, Snatcher, that was the one that created the patience to read and imagine a scenario in me, as opposed to enjoying what I am presented with.
Euphoria by developer Clockup is definitely an experience that will remain within my mind for a very, very long time.
