um . could u give me the rain code pitch . i am still cursed with the dream specter and think i might need to play it to exorcise this

hi. so. this is going to be pretty long and slightly stream of consciousness, because i am always much worse about giving concise pitches than i think. i am also clicking my heels together in joy. its going to be very obvious that i love this game a lot... like. elevator pitch, i would give the game a solid, respectable 6/10 if ranking it purely in gameplay feel, overall execution, and the like. maybe edging closer to a 7 with its updates to performance since launch.

However, what is clear about raincode is that it as a 6 year long labor of love, and this endears me to it in the way that energy endears me to trigger happy havoc despite its flaws, its clunkiness, and its relative shortness. I would give it an easy 9/10 for the heights it strives for and the effort that went into the making of the world, the emotional resonance of the main characters, the story, the aesthetic. the psychic effects it has had on me, finally, cannot be measured. i need to find articles about gay bathouse culture for this game. thats not even a queer theme i think kodaka intentionally put in this game and trust me he puts stuff in intentionally, thats just one i keep thinking about. thats the headspace the game puts me in.

now,

THE (master detective archives/enigma archives) RAINCODE PITCH.

The danganronpa games, you know them. Kazutaka Kodaka, the writer of the games, you may or may not know that guy. I like his writing a lot since i got deeply into danganronpa in 2020. this is one of the only games i have preordered in years. He made a new game that's a 3-d mystery-adventure game. The soundtrack designer and character designer from those games are also here, and spitting. 

Raincode is a mystery-adventure game set in a unique world with what are described as “psycho-noir” aesthetics, referencing the heightened fantasy of the setting’s visuals compared to the (already electric) DR.

You play as Yuma Kokohead, an amnesiac trainee detective sent (along with several other, far higher ranking detectives) to the autonomous zone ‘Kanai Ward’ to investigate its never ending rain, its complete isolation, and the corporation that controls it: Amaterasu Corporation, its faction of ‘peacekeepers’, and its systematic refusal to let investigations be done inside or out.

The bulk of the game IS this detective work, even when you’re not working on a case. The city has several districts (with very clear class associations) that you are free to walk around in, and it uses cyberpunk aesthetics in a way that’s very pleasing to me. Kinda think splatsville but neon, its that design of.. an area thats still maybe a little too polished for a city but it has a genuine eye to how a city actually tends to look and the ways people use it and exist in it. there are quite a few incidental npcs, and i think they work well to make the city feel alive. One of my favorite aspects of the game is the goal to present a multinational setting, with stuff like signage in latin alphabets, cyrillic, kanji, and the character’s names.

I could go on about the design for a while and i have more notes about it later just. The World Is Really Cool. you know what the master detectives are? Theyre detectives sanctioned by the World Detective organization, given the title of master because of their innate psychic abilities that have been honed into forensic and investigative tools. The reason the trainee detective Yuma is an amnesiac is probably because he made a pact with a death god that links them “body and soul”, for purposes he can no longer remember and she is unable or unwilling to tell him. This pact, however, gives him his own edge in investigating. Obviously the game is centered around solving murders, though in a less personal way than in DR. Also like and unlike DR, the way you are guided into solving these murders is through a series of minigames (in a pocket dimension that is the mystery given form (called a mystery labyrinth where the psychedelic design starts to come out crazy hard)) which are. The minigames are fine, i do generally enjoy the non-stop debates from danganronpa more, but theyre well-designed and fun. The mysteries themselves are Bangers, i made it a goal for myself to at least try to solve all of the main ones by myself to test if they were good mysteries where u were given all possible information to piece together, and i never felt cheated when i didnt get it exactly right. Again, it misses some of the intense personal connection you get with some of the murders in dr with it not happening in a closed cast, but i think that the story of them is done very well. Smiles. 

And coming back to yuma, thats the other thing about this game. Danganronpa dealt heavily with exploring themes of student burnout, critiquing the justice system in specific areas like trial and (capital) punishment, etc with its characters, and where Raincode really shines in similar areas, but a little to the left. 

If danganronpa was essentially about teenagers who really didn't have much to gain from the system but useless power over other teenagers and the costs of punishing deviance from norms, raincode is grappling with power structures where adults do have a lot to gain from upholding them, especially through the politics of information. Misinformation, hiding information, even the collection and use of info. Like DR, it also has a lot of very interesting things to say about ‘giftedness’ and the way it can alienate people, though again with a strong eye in considering people without these gifts, and/or people who do not have “average” abilities and how they have to navigate this world. 

The themes are strong. I would argue the game is also edging into being about being disabled and the guilt of burdening or even just interacting others with characters like Yuma, Fubuki, and Pucci. Its really highly interesting and, thankfully Kodaka’s bottom-line touch is one of understanding. The duality of being othered by ability and othered by disability.

I think one of the things i like most about Raincode is its unflinching way it depicts the ebb and flow of our protagonists', Yuma and Shinigami’s, morals, goals, and convictions. It has a lot to say about what depending on other people means, the good and the bad of it, the ways you can be taken advantage of, and all of yuma’s relationships with the other characters showcase this heavily– how he feels about himself in relationship to them, what he wants them to feel about him, how they support him or use him. Its a game where, very plainly, you do not have all the information and are playing against sharks who will take every chance they get to puppet you around. 

and what helps, obviously, is that yuma and shinigami are delightful protagonists to follow. their dynamic is written with a lot of care and nuance and is also just. really funny.

I clear my throat. Addendum. Some things to note, about this game. We have some one piece type shit in here. What i mean by that is I respect komatsuzaki as a character designer but he makes a lot of weird choices in character design that i am unable to really understand the reason for at times. Kodaka is not getting off the hook for the writing of the characters of color, but its unclear how much.. Direct correlation kodaka’s writing and the designs have. Wont get too much into it.

The other thing i mean by that is. Transmisogyny but i put a huge “EXCEPT-” sign up. One of the best chapters of the game centers the transmisogynistic plot device of two male characters having to disguise themselves as girls to investigate a murder in a girl’s school. I am not a trans woman, but what i will say in my perspective being familiar with this trope in even recent stuff like mob psycho is that like. The characters generally can and will say edgy, really rude shit but i personally feel the game takes the stance that theres nothing wrong with crossdressing, yknow? And also the pervert character is explicitly trans-positive. That helps. Its a thing that looks bad head on and makes the pitch kind of hard because obviously its not something one expects to be any better than it looks.

Also the game is almost fully voice acted with only some incidental interaction dialogue not being voiced. The english voice actors do a fantastic job, and from what i understand many of the japanese voice actors have a lot of love for the game too (i can't speak on their performances lol)

(also theres a lot of extra material for the game in the form of dlc stories and collectable story interactions in the main game. these are difficult to know the correct time to experience them and are a bit clunky in that way but are very worth looking up when the time is right)

Forgot I could cross post these! I’ve had a little Yuma character study series going on for a bit, and I’m really happy with how this one came out. It’s only gonna get worse from here! :D

you people will never catch a break from my raincodeposting

I want to examine you beneath a microscope- I strive to be like you tbh, you have such joy and whimsy and angry yelling at everyone vibes and I aspire to be like that one day 🙏🙏🙏

I see your posts and it's like "haha user seth-burroughs, whatever can you be posting about now" and then you say something incredible and beautiful that probably mentions gay sex and I nod sagely and say "ah yes, they have emerged from the earth to drop holy wisdom upon this land"

Anon I crode reading this. What do I evn answer with. This is possibly the highest praise I could ever strive to achieve on my tumble raincodeposting career thank you I will do my best to continue delivering .

Thank you for all your raincodeposting reminding me that the game is like, finally released, I picked up a copy and am super excited to start it!!

Oh my goodness you’re welcome!!! Super excited for you!! Hope you enjoy the game as much as I did <3

making sideblog for possible raincodeposting because i cant keep ghosting my mutuals then suddenly rising from jesus' tomb with new interest forcibly grasped in both hands. if you know my main from my like sprees, no you dont

Rain Code end of Ch. 2/ start of Ch. 3 spoilers under the cut

Doodled this in class. Am I the only one who ugly laughed at this? The cut to the background was just so SUDDEN

girlest in the world

My new favourite pastime is finding stupid shit on the Internet and Rain Code-ifying it

Oh, you finished Chapter 4 of Rain Code already😬

So, uh, how are you feeling after the chapter?

In all seriousness yeah, especially since I’m back in school I’ve gotten too impatient to wait to finish writing before progressing. I just make notes of things I wouldn’t know at a certain point and also have a good record of my live reactions from a channel I update when I play LOL. I like to keep the spoiler barrier up though just in case people still playing the game come across it

Ch. 4 spoilers under the cut. PS I saw your massive comment on my most recent piece, I’m swamped with school atm but I so so appreciate how much you get into my fics, even when I just see you around it’s nice, I think you’ll like what I have in store for the future (be excited and scared)

Man when I tell you I fucking BAWLED. I was inconsolable for a good hour. And it’s so funny because in hindsight there were so many clues leading back to it being Yakou, but I literally did just block the possibility out of my brain because I couldn’t even begin to conceptualize it, especially with how distraught I was that he was already dying. The only thing that got me to finally consider it was when the possibility of Huesca leading the detectives in there to kill them came up, WHICH, MIGHT I ADD, he HAD to at least have had a hunch that would have happened because he banked on them getting Ama-Pal to break in which was literally the only way he could have gotten in there. But that’s a tangent for another day, I have a massive Yakou character analysis/rant in the works because I love him so fucking much, he is the dad of all time.

Besides the heartbreak it was a fucking fantastic chapter though, I wish we could have played a bigger role in the Yomi takedown but seeing him get put in his place was beyond fucking satisfying. ALSO I CALLED MARTINA NOT BEING DEAD because I figured he’d flaunt it so hard if he had physical evidence of her execution, so when she showed back up I was GIDDY. She deserves better

some assorted raincode environmental screenshots as complement to the pitch

fuck ok last addendum to the raincode pitch (tm) is that shinigami is a fascinating character and she does call yuma 'master' the entire game and i am promising you (general) it feels much less weird than it sounds. there is a surprising amount of restraint involved with the character of shinigami and her sexful attributes that i find refreshing compared to the voyeuristic nature of most sexful things in DR. shes preddy cool

by the way, this was back in august but thank you so much @waveglox for this commission! its still as stunning as I first saw it

my first drawing of fubuki, before the game game out iirc

hmm. lays back clasps my hands together fondly. yakou furio. did you know some of his beta designs had his shirt almost barely buttoned

another one of god's little tests

we lost when we started calling things that were bad mid. i would give raincode like a 6/10 being completely wholly objective as i can be but we're all so poisoned by 69% of a grade being F that anything below a 7/10 is a scathing blow. like yeah it is kind of a mid game but its also good and engaging hope this helps

the labyrinths? cool in concept but piggyback off the danganronpa trials a bit too much without keeping what made those riveting (time limits, fast pace, constant back and forth) and a FOURTH HANGMAN's GAMBIT and somehow its one of the better ones. drv3 probably had the most padded trials with how the minigames were and raincode feels like even more of that but with qtes. its a little rough.

story has some holes and like some weirdness but honestly any given mystery game can like. you know ghost trick the extremely lauded and well loved game ghost trick? its a great game! i had a problem with it where the story and events didnt have as big of a payoff as I was hoping there would be esp with the political intrigue. sometimes that just happens with games like this and its not good or bad its just a thing that happens.

and i dont want this to be a common dr era post abt how the characters are good but the game/larger story isnt as important cause in both cases yeah it is!! but the characters Are very compelling. i will say it before and i will say it again kodaka has an unrivalled ability to make any given character in his works a complete asshole in SOME way and its powerful. and he really doesnt mince words in what this game is about while keeping intrigue very alive. kodaka voice yeah hypothetically if human clones were real they would have souls. you idiot. you child. we're talking about something else now

like a 66/100 in pure total craft. above average and striving to be something really incredible, not really *failing* at that so much as it's basically decked out in a lavish bespoke ballgown that means it kind of has trouble climbing the stairs much faster than a speedwalk. has to do the thing where you kick out your legs as you walk up the stairs so you dont trip, and it definitely doesnt trip, but doesnt have the motions down yet either. and the groom waiting at the top of the aisle? makoto kagutsuchi