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hopeymchope · 4 months

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Danganlike, Ahoy: 'Inescapable' begins

I know it's been out for three months, but I only started playing "Inescapable: No Rules, No Rescue" just last night.

Most critics weren't very kind to this Danganlike upon its release; there were a lot of complaints of it being boring. But after a couple of hours with it, my initial impression is VERY positive. Before I get into that, though, let me give a detailed run-down of the basic setup.

A group of 11 Europeans (including our POV character, a Brit named Harrison) are abducted and taken to a tropical island loaded with cameras. There, a pair of "producers" broadcast to their phones to inform the group that they're now part of a reality show called "Inescapable."

Their situation is thus:

They are now part of a limited-broadcast reality show called "Inescapable."

They must live on this island together for the next six months.

There one rule: They cannot interfere with the cameras and broadcast equipment.

Other than that? No other rules or limitations apply, and no law enforcement will ever punish them for any action they take. They may manipulate, assault, or even kill without fear of repercussions.

The phones they are each provided can communicate with one other or the two producers, but that's it. Any other calls are blocked.

The production team will airdop necessary tools for survival (food, fresh water, etc.) regularly provided that the participants leave the broadcast equipment alone and keep the show "entertaining" for the audience.

Failure to be "entertaining" or otherwise non-comply will cause the producers to intervene in ways that make their lives more "interesting." Maybe they'll withhhold supplies to cause starvation/dehydration. Maybe they'll reveal private details about the participants that will generate conflict among them.

Similarly, those who make the show more "entertaining" will receive rewards. These can be new sources of entertainment for them, luxury goods, and who-knows-what else.

Everyone still alive/present by the end of the six months will receive 500,000 Euros. (For most of the cast, this is a princely sum. But for a few, it's a mere pittance.)

The two producers are available to the cast via their phones for any suggestions/requests, but said producers prioritize entertainment value above all other considerations. Requests for information on loved ones, jobs, or possessions left behind are ignored; they are only given the vague promise/warning that "No one will be coming to rescue you."

Admittedly, this setup does not inherently promise murder and betrayal the way that something that Danganronpa, Yurukill, Your Turn to Die, or Virtue's Last Reward all did. Instead, there's a pervasive unease around every action your character or the other characters take. If you see someone on the phone, are they bartering with the producers in a way that will harm your or someone else? If someone is wittholding basic info about themselves, why would they feel the need to do so — are they potentially dangerous for the sake of "entertainment"? If you see two characters whispering, are they conspiring? Even if you try to have a whispered conversation in the middle of the jungle, are you truly alone?

Most of the gameplay is essentially structured like Danganronpa's "Free Time Events." On most days, you get a morning, afternoon, and evening. You look at the map of the island and can see who is hanging out where; from there, you choose where to visit and who to talk to. These conversations each last one of those time periods, can reveal more about the characters in question, and can also include dialogue choices that will affect your "route" through the game. But even the decision of who you choose to talk with affects the route... and once that time period is up, there's no guarantee you can see the other conversations that you skipped out on at a later time.

Any given playthrough can wind up on one of four "routes" to a unique ending based on the conversation choices you make, the people you choose to speak with, and some other actions. For example: There are some side games in an Arcade setting that you can spend time playing. It's also possible to earn "points" with the producers based on your choices that you can use to unlock "gossip" or "dirt" about any character you choose, with each character having multiple items in both categories. Whether you choose to purchase any such items and which ones you get also affect your ultimate route. In fact, based on what I'm seeing online? The number of simple actions that can affect what path your character is leaning towards reminds me more of a Silent Hill game than a standard visual novel! We're seriously talking shit like "Spend X amount of time looking at Y in inventory" can have an impact.

Sadly, there's no easy signposting for how you wind up on a given route or what you'd need to do to get a different one. I'd really prefer they had a flowchart like a Zero Escape game, but this is instead more like a SciAdv visual novel where unlocking a different outcome is going to be dependent on either (A) blindly trying different approaches as you go or (B) consulting an Internet walkthrough.

Either way, the stress of daily decision-making and the quirkiness of the characters/their dialogue has me hooked RN. We'll see if it can carry me satisfactorily across the finish line.

#inescapable #danganlike ahoy #danganronpa #inescapable: no rules no rescue #yurukill #visual novels #sciadv #zero escape

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hopeymchope · 1 year

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I've been struggling with what to say about "Process of Elimination" since I completed it last week.

It's a hard one to tackle because it's enjoyable, it's good... but it's still got issues, too. Most things do, I guess. But I can overlook them more easily if you can get me really invested/excited about what's happening or the characters it's happening to. This story, on the other hand, never made me drop it completely but also never got me all that excited. There's enough to love to make it worthwhile without it ever being great. In game review parlance, this is probably a low 7/10. (For anyone who isn't aware: For SOME goddamn reason, game reviews typically dub anything from 6/10 and lower as all being various degrees of "bad." Kind of like the U.S. school grading system, I guess?)

Both the Switch and PS4 physical releases are all "Deluxe Editions," as far as I know. So all copies currently include a digital soundtrack and a mini-art book that you'd better avoid opening until you complete the game.

Did I enjoy the game/visual novel and its story? Overall, yes. But I mean... it's very much targeted at my personal interest area. It's got a fun gameplay setup for investigating mysteries, and it's a very Dangan-like mystery full of odd/entertaining characters at its core. If you like things like Danganronpa and/or the Ace Attorney series, then of course this is going to be up your alley. It's in that kind of wheelhouse: Loads of dialogue peppered with occasional gameplay periods, etc. I can naturally recommend it to those people, even if it isn't going to hit the same heights that they do.

Did I like the characters' personalities/talents and their unique writing? Eh... well enough I guess. I certainly have some faves; a couple of them even survived the story, although one fave was ruined by a reveal that erased their previous likability. I suppose that always happens in these kinds of titles.

Would I play a sequel? Again: Definitely yes, for much the same reasons as I cited two paragraphs up. It's just right in my target area of interest. (And the game definitely ends with a big, wide opening left for a follow-up.)

Did I get invested enough that I was thinking about the game when I wasn't playing, anxiously waiting to hear the next bit of dialogue or witness the next reveal? No. It never gets that "can't wait to see what's next" feeling that the Danganronpa, Zero Escape, or A.I.: The Somnium Files series — and even the recent Yurukill: The Calumniation Games — all instilled in me. THOSE games/Visual Novels are what voracious readers would dub "page-turners." Process of Elimination is, by comparison, not much of a page-turner for most of its duration; I wasn't terribly excited/driven to see what was coming next for most of the runtime. I only reached that level of interest in seeing what was ahead during the final chapter. The plot never gets as exciting as those games, nor do the characters ever get as endearing and engaging to follow as a Danganronpa game (which I consider my current gold standard for character writing in these things).

You'll do this in every chapter — sometimes even more than once. But you'll never do it for very long.

Now, I've already talked about the basics of how the gameplay segments work in an earlier post. And in that post, I "guesstimated" that it'd be close to DR in terms of gameplay/dialogue balance. However, now that I've completed it, I confess I was wrong. The balance wasn't like Danganronpa or Ace Attorney. This one leans even MORE heavily into the "Visual Novel" side than any of those do. Gameplay segments are relatively brief by comparison, taking up slightly less than 10% of your game time overall. But hey — the game as a whole is also shorter than any of those games are, too, so that helps make things even out a little bit.

Warnings for any new/potential players

1) If you buy this game, absolutely do not open the Mini Art Book it comes with until after you finish the game. But also: Absolutely DO open it after you finish it, because some of the character art and information therein is REALLY worth seeing. There's some great reveals and details in there that just aren't shared in the actual text of the story. First off, I just want to say that although I enjoyed this game and its story.

2) Another warning: After you finish the game, you'll likely notice that there are still "events" in the Residual Thought gallery that you haven't unlocked. You need to go back through the investigations (don't worry; you can just select the chapter from the chapter list, and then choose to jump RIGHT to the investigations) and complete them again, using Discount Shuichi Incompetent Detective to grab any new Residual Thoughts that appear on the map along the way. Getting them all not only reveals some key new backstory, it also eventually unlocks a new epilogue scene that I feel is worth the effort.

Faves and Anti-Faves

For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I'll just say that a few of my faves remained that way all the way up to the end. And a couple of said faves even survived, which was nice to see. But of course, I did lose at least one fave as well — someone I found wholly lovable turned out to have a dark reveal that effectively erased their previous warmth. And much like most of the Danganronpa games, I even had an "anti-fave"; a character who acts like an overt asshole the entire time despite the life-or-death stakes. That'd be Renegade Detective. He sucks from the moment he's introduced in the very first chapter, so it's not like I'm spoiling anything to say that he's flashing the biggest "DO NOT TRUST" warning of the cast from the jump.

"I am here to cause problems on purpose."

As for our Shuichi-lookin' protagonist?

Did he escape out from under his "Discount Shuichi" label eventually? YES, I felt he earned a decent enough level of distinction.

Did I like the way he got there? NO, honestly. There was basically a quick-and-easy shift from one extreme to another that I can't adequately explain herein...

Did I like him by the end of the game? KIND OF. Well enough that I wouldn't mind following him again if I had to, at any rate.

Gripes/Complaints

1) Okay, so I'm not going to spoil anything if I can help it, but I want to speak very vaguely about the mastermind/villain reveal. I'm someone who finds it impossible to NOT try to predict how twists/reveals will eventually go down in mysteries. I've watched SO MANY mystery TV shows and movies and played so many mystery-centric games over the years, and it's always fun for me to try and guess the culprit when you can. I'm infinitely delighted if a mystery can surprise me or take turns I never saw coming. But in the case of PoE, if you're looking at all for the mastermind and you've got adequate experience in mystery stories or "twist ending" stories... IMO, it's not hard to figure out the culprit. It follows a very specific trope that I've seen plenty of times, so I saw it coming pretty early on. By the end of Chapter 2, I already had my eye on them. And by the time you get to the final chapter, you're almost definitely going to realize who it is WELL before the reveal drops, because they start waving a gigantic flag pointing at themselves that nobody else in the group seems to notice.

My "predictive" habit also means that I managed to imagine something that I thought would be extremely unlikely, wild as fuck, and incredibly impactful to our characters on a personal/emotional level. I can't help wishing that I'd been close to the truth with my imagined mastermind. (Even though it would've ruined one of my fave characters in here, lol.)

2) I wish the second investigation wasn't the hardest in the game. If you wanna collect everything (and let's be real: YES YOU DO), it's the toughest to manage in the time allotted. There's a mini-investigation in Chapter 4 that presents some challenge due to the wandering enemies, but once you figure out where they tend to land, that's about it. I never struggled anywhere else. I think the difficulty balance is a bit off, is what I'm saying. Like, maybe Chapter 5 or Chapter 6 should've contained mild difficulty in the investigation segments? Considering they're the last two? But Chapter 5 is roughly the easiest one outside of Chapter 1, which is... interesting.

3) I can't spell this out either, but: There's a key component of two important characters' backstory that is eventually revealed late in the game that... really requires more explanation than it's given. Like. HOW could that be possible? Given how much the game teases this eventual reveal right from the start, I sorta thought they'd eventually fully explain those past events but... nah they didn't bother. I guess it's being held back for a sequel, if they get to make one?

I'll get more specific in just a moment.

Okay, let's go into a couple of FULL SPOILERS under the cut.

(Please don't click unless/until you've played the thing to the very end.)

So here's the backstory issue: If Incompetent was actually Ideal and was gored by one of the robots as a kid, someone please explain to me how he was saved but MORE IMPORTANTLY, how his innate talents and knowledge and abilities were just transferred to another kid who volunteered to take them. That's not a thing that people can do? In fact, that kinda sounds like fucking magic. I assume that if they pursue a sequel, they'll eventually have to lay out some wild explanation involving experimental technology or something.

Furthermore, there's an ending issue: Despite Doleful's constant claims that there's no evidence that they're the Duke and that these people were all suicidal anyway and shit, THEIR OWN WORDS pretty much betray them. You can't SERIOUSLY expect me to believe that you arrested them solely for indirectly causing ONE death, because their words and actions during the climax provide MORE than enough evidence to nail them to the wall. Even if Techie DIDN'T record Doleful's rant (which seems unlikely), then multiple respected, high-ranking detectives heard him outline details that only the Duke could possibly know, including the claim that these people were all part of "mutual murder/suicides." And the Duke's involvement in setting up the circumstances for those things is also blatantly criminal in damn near every country on Earth, so uh... yeah. He's fucked. But I'm confident that they were trying to set it up so that he could easily get off the hook (somehow) for a sequel rampage? Which is really... pretty dumb.

One last thing is that a fundamental part of the game's story is how our hero believes he must never, ever take a life in his work as a detective/cop, no matter what situation he's in... which strikes me as just incredibly naïve. But the writing celebrates this perspective — despite the fact that he ends up causing additional deaths due to this attitude! No one ever calls him on that. He never feels guilty about it. He just is like "Nope. It doesn't matter whose life is at stake. It doesn't matter if they have a gun on a hostage. It doesn't matter if they'll clearly escape to kill again in mere moments if I don't stop them forcibly right here, right now. I'll never, ever risk taking a life." And while that's noble and respectable in theory (especially in light of our modern reality where we see so many trigger-happy cops).... it's mega-cringe in practice here, in this particular story. But that's an "individual mileage may vary" bit, I suppose.

#process of elimination #visual novels #danganronpa #ace attorney #yurukill #video games #reviews #danganlikes #visual novel reviews

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