I was playing Metal Slug 3 last night, and this reminds me of that series in how it throws so many untelegraphed boss behavior patterns at you without caring if you can reasonably keep up.
This game looks amazing... how have I not heard of this?
It was a Genesis exclusive. So it went under a lot of people's radar.
Yeah, the Genesis versions of the popular Konami franchises typically associated with Nintendo at the time (Castlevania, Contra, Turtles) were kind of looked at as second-string entries in the day - something to keep the Genesis crowd happy. It wasn't an entirely fair assessment, obviously.
lmao, meanwhile I have seen people who have gone through various aspects of these issues or known people who have say they're pretty accurate outside of the obviously absurdist parts.
The parts where the game treats suicide and self-harm as nothing but grist for exploitative screamer stuff (or, as you put it, "obvious absurdis[m]," suggesting you perhaps need a better grounding in philosophy) , though, are far more extensive and far outweigh the early, brief Sayori stuff. They're the rule—not, as you suggest, the exception. (In retrospect, said early, brief Sayori stuff actually makes things even worse, as it sets up expectations and writes checks re: treating the material with the gravity it deserves that the rest of the game isn't remotely interested in cashing.) The fact that the game's treatment of this material makes you "lmao" proves my point.
I understand you like this game and want others on the site to have the same enthusiasm you do for it, but sometimes even stuff we like doesn't handle certain aspects of its material very well. In DDLC's case, the stuff it chooses to mishandle is...well, some of the worst and most potentially harmful material to mishandle. Just because a piece of media has innocent characters doing Disturbing Things (which, really, is an extremely old trope and nothing remotely groundbreaking) doesn't make it mature, and just because it has a few SHOCKING TWISTS doesn't make it profound or wise or unimpeachable.
@captaininvictus: It may start off OK with its early portrayal of Sayori's depression, but it devolves fairly quickly into using graphic suicidal & self-harm imagery for regressive & juvenile shock scare tactics. (The Monika stuff you mention doesn't excuse it or make it deep and not-stupid, particularly in regard to the carnival-sideshow manner of the material's presentation; there's nothing I'm "missing," as you put it.) I'm not saying games shouldn't tackle issues like suicide or depression, but they have an obligation to treat the material with respect instead of as just a springboard to easy screamers and dumb, histrionic gore.
Man, it didn't take long for the comments section here to be taken over by angry pedants, particularly those posting only to alert the world that they took one (1) semester of Japanese.
ETA: Given the recommendations, I feel compelled to point out that Doki Doki Literature Club makes prominent use of graphic images of self-harm for cheap shock value and makes Tender Loving Care look like a paragon of sensitivity and maturity when it comes to depictions of mental health issues. (I know a lot of people love the game, but it really does stumble in that regard.)
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