Preamble (i.e., What Does It Take For A Video Game To Be A "Sicko Game?")

What is the "sicko game?" With people flippantly calling Lethal Company 2023's best "meme game" and RoboCop: Rogue City the previous year's best "B-game," fringe gaming terms and labels are starting to shape up and take more definite and absolute qualifications. But one label is also beginning to crop up more and more with the advent of self-publishing platforms like itch.io and the barriers to getting games on Steam, GOG, and EGS at all-time lows. I am talking about "Sicko Games." What are these games? Let's review some examples before a random essayist you've decided to give your time to (i.e., me) rattles off a nebulous and incredibly subjective definition. Kenshi? Absolutely in the "sicko territory!" It's an open-world RPG that continually kicks your teeth in when you least expect it, and its monotonous brown and tan world makes navigation a bore. Fear & Hunger? Despite its unique creative choices, that game actively hates you and looks the part, and you have to be "sick" to play it for more than three hours; it is purely a sicko experience and exercise from top to bottom. Pathologic and Pathologic 2? You have to be a sicko to enjoy those games, and I'm one of them, and if you aren't convinced that's the case from just looking at those games, watch the Pathologic 2 review by MandaloreGaming. However, rest assured, when I call a game something for "sickos," it's a term of endearment as much as a label used to caution others on how they should proceed.

Authentic sicko games are not necessarily bad. Nor are they games that lack creative ambition or artistic merits. They are games with rough edges, sometimes deliberately, that actively make them intended for a small audience. And that audience often requires a part of their brain to fire away on its synapses incorrectly to make even half of the game "work" for them. Something in the game is very wrong, and something is very wrong in you. I would hazard to say that everyone has a sicko game they love. There's at least one video game in your catalog of titles you own that should not work and should not appeal to you, but it does, and it's equally your and the game's fault. There's nothing to worry about if your example immediately comes to mind. Accept it, you are a sicko! Wear that badge with pride! I want to explore that last point more before we continue so you understand where I am coming from for this particular blog. Cruelty Squad was on my 2021 GOTY list as an honorable mention. That game hurt my eyeballs to the point where I could only ever play it in ten to twenty-minute spurts, and I wouldn't say I enjoyed my time. The world of Cruelty Squad is ugly, and the NPCs that litter its vomitous world are equally immoral. Your actions and missions are often vile, and I would struggle to call the game mechanically a good time. Its UI and interface are deliberately designed to be repulsive and unhelpful to the player.

Nevertheless, that's the point, and I admire the game's unabashedly subversive nature. It's a sick game with a subversive arthouse agenda that would make John Waters smile. You look past its MANY repulsive attributes because you see its sicko beauty. It's a marvel. This point leads me to Eternights, the 2023 game I think embodies the sicko label to a tee, even though it might not seem to be the case from the onset. Many dismissed it as a B-Tier attempt at the Persona franchise's visual novel format with bland, repetitious combat. I'm here to tell you that while those criticisms are entirely valid, they are all the more reason to rejoice at the very fact that Eternights exist. Why would I defend a game that errs on creative bankruptcy due to how shamelessly it pulls its designs from other games or the fact that all its characters are walking trash people? Because I'm sick, and I'm not ashamed to say that.

The Sense Of Déjà Vu Is Undeniable

Eternights is a visual novel dating sim action roleplaying game. At its heart, it is a hack-and-slash game, with its story being told chiefly through visual novel-like cutscenes and dialogue choices not too far off from Persona 5 Strikers. Like Atlus' Persona franchise, in-between combat sequences and dungeon-based exploratory efforts, you are expanding your party and furthering relationships with your party members. By spending time with these characters, you increase your protagonist's stats and gain new abilities to use in combat. However, some choices that the story and these side adventures prompt you to make will advance social-based stats, which are crucial to progressing through specific roadblocks and skill checks with some character-based adventures. For example, when trying to further your in-game romance options, one requires you to pass "Courage" skill checks, and another requires you to pass "Confidence" based ones. Sound familiar? Well, I'm just getting started with Eternights's unabashed gameplay mime act! To further highlight how shameless Eternights copies Atlus's homework, it utilizes a calendar-based timeline mechanic that forces you to budget which relationships and social interactions you wish to pursue on any given day. Spending time with a character or advancing their character arc burns a day on this calendar, and you have a finite number of actions per day before your character needs to rest.

Now, let's make something obvious before continuing. I am not accusing Eternights of genuine "plagiarism." First, the dating sim mechanics that have come to define the core identity of the Persona series are not unique systems. They date back to Tokimeki Memorial and further back in time, and Eternights borrowing its formatting is not plagiarism because genre conventions are not copyrightable ideas. Second, Eternights adds some unique twists here and there to mix things up, and it is FAR MORE HONEST about trying to mimic otome or bishōjo dating sim sensibilities. Where Persona wants you to view intimacy as a distant end goal, Eternights wants you to revel in "getting babes" right from the rip. Also, one benefit of Eternights being a comedic adventure is that it is much more forgiving about being able to see and experience everything in a single playthrough. It mercifully limits the feeling of "the fear of missing out" AND clocks in at under fifteen hours in a normal playthrough. Yes, romance options bring something different to color your experience, but there are only four, and the base game isn't that dynamic that you should feel like you need to see everything in it to appreciate its vision.

Nonetheless, the fact that it heavily emulates the conventions of a well-known series and franchise makes Eternights's many shortcomings more readily visible. Speaking of Persona 5 Strikers specifically, when examined from an entirely objective lens, this game compares unfavorably to it and even Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, which pre-date it by a year and change. Indeed, comparing Persona 5 and Fire Emblem spin-offs to Eternights is unfair, considering Eternights functions on a fraction of either's budget. Nonetheless, the lack of depth in its mechanics is a solved problem and one wherein developer Studio Sai had plenty of reference material to consult to avoid. The biggest flaw is that Eternights fails to execute Atlus's risk-reward dungeon design. Typically, in games of this sort, you feel pressed to budget your relationship pursuits because there's a challenging dungeon with a completion date breathing down your neck looming in the background, and that limits the amount of time you have to mess around. Unfortunately, because there's a severe issue with the gameplay's power scale, you can blow through the dungeons in a single go and have an almost endless amount of time to fuss about before subsequent combat arenas crop up. The problem is that you see the game so painfully copy another established franchise's whole milieu and essentially fail at it at a fundamental level.

But all of that's part of Eternights's claim to being 2023's "Best Sicko Game." It is a creatively bankrupt game that brings almost nothing new to the table, and there are plenty of better alternatives for you to play instead of it. Instead of improving on a solved formula, it adds unneeded complications that make things more annoying and less mechanically rewarding. It is BUSTED, and the relationships it promises to have these big climaxes ultimately don't pan out as epically as it endeavors. Many of the game's dower and quieter moments are unintentionally funny. However, I found all of that to be part of the game's charm, much like I find Neil Breen films to be an endless source of hilarity. During this game's most incompetent moments, it might be one of the greatest comedies of 2023. Furthermore, considering how often the game and its characters are in on its jokes, it's hard not to find some delight in its messes, at least most of them. Additionally, there are things that Eternights does well that are worthy of praise without an ounce of malice or sarcasm, which we should talk about shortly.

Mechanically, This Game Has Slightly More Depth Than Akiba's Trip, But Not By Much!

The mission structure and the topics the narrative in Eternights addresses are also problematic. The game occurs during an apocalyptic event where your character is unsurprisingly chosen to put an end to the source of destruction. Unfortunately, the issue with this game occurring during a disaster is that you walk through many ruined subway shafts and dilapidated city streets and buildings. As if the game's production values did not already lay the case that this is a "B Game" erring towards C-tier or even Z-tier categories, the missions are usually the same three to four types. You either have to kill enough enemies to rid an area of an evil taint, which inevitably spawns a boss. Sometimes, you hear a call for help and need to rescue someone before a timer expires. And other times, there's a MacGuffin the game's Igor-like tells you to fetch to make the final boss encounter possible. This returns me to the topic of the game's actual structure and formatting. There are two spectral walls in which you need to complete missions, and then there's the final location wherein the end of the game takes place. The two walls subject you to dungeons with culminating events that usually involve boss battles, and you need to bring these down before the calendar triggers the end, or else you reach a failed scenario.

However, do not worry too much because, as I hinted earlier, these dungeons, which are meant to test your potency and competency in combat, can be one shot in a single day, which kneecaps the game's risk-reward stylings. The only real reason for you to return to the dungeons is if a character arc requires it. Otherwise, you can spend most of your time mucking about with people you want to get intimate with. Part of this problem stems from this being a hack-and-slash game, and like most hack-and-slash games, when you find a combo or weapon you feel comfortable with, there's no reason for you ever to give it up until the story forces you to use specific moves or items. Think less Persona 5 Strikers and more Dynasty Warriors or Warriors Orochi when trying to wrap your head around what type of musou this might be. There are combos to try out and a parry mechanic to test out as well. Still, the enemies are generally bog standard, and the window for parrying and blocking enemy attacks is so generous it is hard for me even to count the number of times I ever felt challenged. To that end, the game reminded me of the Akiba's Trip series. Those games knew that they had one gimmick to share to keep you occupied (i.e., stripping people of their clothes to defeat them). At the same time, you went on this over-the-top anime homage of an adventure with Japanese nerd culture bleeding through every part of its narrative. That's precisely the case with Eternights but with dating sim gameplay hooks and a more significant emphasis on pop music and pop music idol culture.

The only thing that keeps your attention going during these missions is the topics of your pursuits and character interactions during them. This is also where the writing most likely will make your toes crawl backward into your feet. The clearest example comes near the start of the game when one of your female companions experiences her period and begs you to find some menstrual pads. You then get thrust into a required in-game fetch quest, and she bleeds to death if you fail to retrieve these before a mission timer expires. I should also mention that during this, the game makes the point that she is grumpy, and all of the male party members act and say exactly what you expect them to say when this situation crops up. Look, I warned you. This game is a "sicko game," and there's a reason why I started this section with a comparison to Akiba's Trip. Like Akiba's Trip, Eternights knows its shelf life is short, and that's part of why there's a beauty to its near ten-hour playtime.

Nonetheless, the game's attempts to give you its best shot during this playtime are inconsistent. Eternights knows what it wants to do but only sometimes understands how. It was primarily written and made by a single individual in their twenties, making a game for other twentysomethings. They wanted to have a go at making their idea of a good Persona-like experience, and they missed the mark more than I'd have liked. Yet, the game gets the job done and does feel like something that would appeal to its intended audience. On that singular note, there's no denying the game is a success, as trashy and repulsive it might be in execution. It only does a little to keep you mechanically invested, and its only recourse is to present you with humor on par with modern-era South Park or Seth MacFarlane, which was a choice. But let's not deny those sophomoric sensibilities do not speak to an almost universal human sentiment or shared worldview, and rest assured, Eternights is a game for sickos. It is NOT a game made for and by scumbags. There's a difference between Eternights and YIIK: A Postmodern RPG, and that difference is the size of a canyon in Eternights's favor.

All Of The Characters Are Trash People And That Works In Eternights's Favor

Don't get me wrong, the characters are far from perfect. Most are stand-ins for the twentysomething experience, and others are cheap anime trope amalgams. To underscore, one of your romanceable options is a pop singer with a sheltered upbringing and doesn't understand how "commoners" live. The protagonist has zero personality as they are your cipher, and they are encouraged in-game to be a bit of a pervert. I want to emphasize that we live in a world where the self-aware and perverted multimedia universe of KonoSuba and its characters have, by hook or by crook, become some of the most immediately recognizable and mainstream in anime circles, especially isekai-based ones. Suppose you want to tell me something about Kazuma's tomfoolery feels compelling, witty, or humorous. In that case, you don't have that much ground to admonish Eternights for doing anything wholly unacceptable. Kazuma's comedic chemistry with his party members and lack of any noble cause guiding his actions are all things Eternights tries very liberally to copy. They are cut from the same "Look at me messing with the people around me as I wink directly into the camera, isn't that funny" cloth. And don't take that to mean that I don't think you are wrong for liking KonoSuba or viewing it as a refreshing inversion of the isekai genre. Nevertheless, let's not pretend that the idea of a comedic story featuring nothing but trash people doing trashy things is a new concept and has never been met with effusive praise and even end-of-the-year awards. Now, don't get me wrong, there's NOTHING in Eternights that even approaches the high marks of KonoSuba's comedic timing, cleverly ad-libbed lines, or meta-humor. Even with this, let's not pretend that the concept guiding Eternights's character progression and style is summarily without merit.

This game empowers you to be a forward-thinking college student on an adventure to lose your virginity during the opening prologue. It never stops reminding you about that goal, BUT even the perverts in Eternights have standards. You must earn your right to go to Bone Town by engaging with its dating sim mechanics; consent is part of the game. Even your Yosuke Hanamura-like (i.e., Chani_, who is a total "dude bro" that is constantly pressuring you to muck up with girls using dating apps, has an almost Austin Powers standard of not being a total and complete scumbag even if their goal is to be having sex all the time. Also, while it certainly isn't "perfect," everything is on the table in Eternights, including a gay relationship, which I was pleasantly surprised to see progress as goofily and KonoSuba-like as the heteronormative relationships. The gay romance option is as much a sex-positive and comedic weirdo as the rest of the cast, but don't let that suggest that they are not free from some incredibly dated anime notions of gay people and the gay experience. Equally interesting is the fact that the female characters are as horny and open-minded about sex as the male ones. There's a female companion who, when the topic of sex toys comes up, says something to the tune of "Of course I masturbate. Did you think we [women] don't enjoy masturbating as much as dudes?" When this happened, I'm not going to lie; I was utterly punching the air. The maker of Eternights gets women above the age of twenty better than 95% of all the writers attached to significant JRPG franchises. His female characters stand up for themselves and even probe the male characters, under the backdrop of an apocalyptic event, about what they expect women to be like in relationships and allow them to call them out when they are full of shit. Likewise, when the female characters feel engaged in a romance they consent to, they are as awkward about getting the ball rolling as the dudes. That and the decision to include a gay romance option that feels earnest are why this isn't some bullshit game like YIIK.

Furthermore, I have to tip my hat to Eternights in another regard. The Persona games put you through these long relationship pursuits, and because they remain committed to tackling the "teen experience," they incidentally address the topic of intimacy. Eternights saw that part of Persona's playbook, scribbled it out, and wrote on top using a Sticky Note, "What if you just kiss the people you want to date in the game, and we showed you that?" That might sound creepy to some of you, but I must clarify that every character in this game is a college student. Mercifully, the lead on Eternights recognized that the Persona formula is less skeevy when you make the characters you are controlling adults. This is an appreciated change of pace, considering your best friend immediately starts things off with you making a fake Tinder account on a mobile dating app. Chani is a lot, but I would be lying if I told you I had not met real-world versions of him. What I will also commend is the fact that everyone in the game has a heart. For example, if you elect to make your protagonist homosexual, Chani still has your back and, without losing a step. Once you have a heart-to-heart with him about being gay, he immediately recommends ways to create a gay harem using a different but gay dating app and even chimes, "More power to you! Go kiss some guys!" He's your bro through thick and thin, and everyone in this world is a lovable goofball, and there's no homophobia or racist bone in anyone to speak of. I get that's not even the slightest bit realistic, but it was a breath of fresh air that a game let me be gay or straight and not have that romantic journey defined by trauma or tragedy. It's a romantic "power fantasy," yes, but I like it all the same.

And therein lies the core heart of Eternights that has virtually every Atlus game beat. The characters are sickos, yes, but they are twenty-year-olds that are midway into their college educations. They are ciphers for a sleazy journey, but one that is, let's be honest, incredibly prescient and familiar. It's that weird moment when you finally realize your sexual orientation and intimate pursuits are finally "yours." You don't need to hold back; you're an adult; go buck wild as long as you treat those around you respectfully and always value the importance of consent. It's a freeing moment, and much like the characters of Eternights, it happens in those opening weeks of leaving your parent's home, and you're finally living away from their influence for the first time. Don't lie for this next part; remember that first party you joined after a dorm or roommate peer pressured you into attending, and during which you realized you didn't need to worry about a curfew for the first time in your life? Remember the people you tried to talk to during those opening moments of your adulthood because you were figuring out who you were and still deciding who you wanted to be around? This game is awkward, sometimes skeevy, and even made my skin crawl. However, that's what that weird period in your life was like! Sure, there are times when Eternights isn't all that well-written or directed. However, it may be the only game or form of media that even attempts to capture an almost universal moment in our lives and have fun with it, and that's worth something.

So, This Game Isn't "Great," But I'm Glad These Sorts Of Games Still Are Being Made

And despite all of this tacit praise, I don't know of a single person on this very website who benefits from playing Eternights. The combat isn't just weak; it is downright dull. The only mechanical high point comes when the game gets slightly more exotic about its buffs, but even that feels like plate spinning, like Final Fantasy XIII. You are mashing away on simple combos for hours upon end, many of which you discover and become comfortable with during the game's prologue. The minute the game gives you a designated healer, you feel ready to slop through almost all of the game, as the enemy variety is pitiful, and the moment-to-moment challenge is even worse. Some of your compatriots have impressive magical abilities, but you often forget to use them because mashing away on buttons with little thought or strategy in mind gets the job done much faster. It's hard to take a game of rock-paper-scissors seriously when rock beats the shit out of paper AND scissors without protest.

The visual and mission variety is as bad as the gameplay variety. This leaves the characters and their weird relationship-based pursuits, which are all determined by you, all that remains to do the heavy lifting. And I have to be honest if I was looking at this from an entirely objective vantage point and I was not afflicted with a brain disease that makes me froth at the mouth when something revels in anime bullshitery, none of that is good enough. It's not, and worse, it's incredibly erratic. There are times when the game feels earnest and authentic, and there are other times when it feels like a bad Family Guy or American Dad skit. It's a mess that feels like something only a college-bound fraternity brother could enjoy because outside of that lone homosexual romance option, it feels like a game for dude bros. You are implored to view sexual intimacy as an end goal of sorts for any male character in life and are even rewarded with new abilities and RPG mechanics in making that power fantasy happen.

And yet, I do have that brain sickness. I'm sick. This game is sick. We are meant for each other. Eternights speaks to an authentic human experience despite how messy its execution might be. It fixes an annoyance I have had with the works of Atlus in that it elects to use young adults, instead of high schoolers, in the early years of their university efforts. It puts all its emotional intentions on the table during its opening and never lets you forget what it is about. It is one of the most emotionally and creatively transparent games of 2023 in that regard. The inciting action happens when the game's protagonist is murdered during a blind date, and even as the world crumbles to ash, both they and the weirdos they meet, both male and female, can't stop thinking about who they'd like to kiss when the dust settles. The game and its characters have zero chill, and it does not care.

It is subversive. Eternights took a formula I think almost everyone knows and somehow made it worse, less fun, more crass, and more perverted. There are dick jokes immediately after deeper conversations about the pressures of living up to one's self-inflicted expectations of how to live one's life. Still, there's not a single malicious bone in this game's body. Eternights is a modern-day video game doujinshi that got its bag and did it with a giant smile. On the issue of it being a derivative work, it's fan fiction that went mainstream, not unlike the Twilight books. But more than that, its messy and uneven structure, style, and writing is an almost perfect tribute to the shameful awkwardness of being a twentysomething. And in that regard, the game is ideal sicko material. No game quite captures those foolhardy days and years quite like Eternights.