Silent Hill 4: The Room Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 10/19/2022)

[Image from igdb.com]

Silent Hill 4: The Room

Developer: Konami/Team Silent

Publisher: Konami

Genre(s): Survival Horror

Platforms: PS2, Xbox, PC

Release Date: June 17, 2004

Silent Hill 4: The Room is the wildcard of the Silent Hill franchise, and considering the series is synonymous with being bizarre and disorienting, that’s quite the achievement. Silent Hill 4 is also the swansong of the original lineup of Silent Hill titles made by Team Silent before each team member defected elsewhere and international developers outsourced the series. In retrospect, Silent Hill 4 is a sentimental treasure that marked the last of something authentic in the series before it was subjected to a smattering of derivative releases that failed to capture Silent Hill's original, horrific magic. At the time, Silent Hill 4 garnered nothing but contention among Silent Hill fans, with one side arguing that Team Silent should’ve closed its doors after Silent Hill 3. Silent Hill 4 had the opposite dilemma that Silent Hill 3 faced: The latter relied on too much familiarity from the first game, while the former deviated from the familiar series tropes too drastically. Silent Hill 4 is so disjointed that it feels as if Team Silent were developing a new IP and someone at Konami’s offices told them to slap the Silent Hill brand label on it to garner more sales revenue, tweaking the final product with recognizable properties before its release. Fans like myself wanted something narratively unconventional like Silent Hill 2, but Silent Hill 4 tends to overstep the series' confines into avant-garde territory. As alien as Silent Hill 4 tends to be, at least it’s what makes the game interesting.

Shockingly, the most substantial deviation that Silent Hill 4 makes is almost omitting the town of Silent Hill entirely. Usually, I’d be thrilled to see a series retreat from its familiar stomping grounds, but Silent Hill is an entirely different beast compared to The Mushroom Kingdom and Hyrule. Besides being the series namesake, Silent Hill is the main character of the series and the only recurring one as well. Silent Hill 2 established the town as the recurrent protagonist, highlighting its supernatural powers as a haven for a limitless amount of harrowing possibilities. Silent Hill 3 seemingly averted from the town at first, but Heather eventually returned to the zenith point of its horrific emissions after taking a diminished helping of it with her through the streets of Portland, Maine. Both sequels take radically different directions, but the town still demands its place as the center of attention. Silent Hill 4’s inclusion of the town is fairly minimal, resorting to lore buildings to retain some sense of interconnectivity. Wiping the slate clean and only referencing the town of Silent Hill in a mainline Silent Hill game may seem blasphemous, but I’ll allow it. Conventions shouldn’t bog down an atypical series like Silent Hill. Two different Silent Hill protagonists have trekked through the same hospital on two separate occasions, so perhaps it’s time to tread new ground before the developers are forced to expand the area of Silent Hill to the mammoth proportions of a major metropolis like London or Tokyo. Doing so would compromise the quaint, remote scope of the town.

Instead, Silent Hill 4’s primary setting is Ashfield, a town as uninteresting as its generic, every-American town name would imply. The town is cloudy and dismal, but only on the scale of real-life cities like Seattle or Cleveland instead of acting as the murky base of a haunting, hellish atmosphere that Silent Hill exudes. At least, I can deduce this from the small fraction I can see of it. Ashfield is not a fractured concrete field for the player to navigate like the Silent Hill hub from the previous games. Rather, it’s merely the zip code of the protagonist's apartment. Henry Townshend, this game’s unfortunate bastard plucky hero, lives in a dinky, one-bedroom apartment in Ashfield’s downtown district: the “room” alluded to in the title. His existence is made even more meager because he cannot physically leave his apartment, with only a few nearby acquaintances expressing only slight curiosity about his whereabouts. Some mysterious force keeps poor Henry under house arrest, with enough locks and chains on his front door to cage in a gorilla with some effective soundproofing to boot. His only viable methods of seeing the outside world is through peering outside his windows like in Rear Window or voyuering through the peepholes in his front door and a weathered spot in his living room wall. Silent Hill 4’s premise attempts to replicate something known in the film world as a “bottle movie.” The term is defined as a film that mostly takes place in a single setting whose strengths rely on dialogue and mood in lieu of the inherent lack of action. Over time, the sole setting becomes as central as any of the people in it through its persistence of being the only foreground. Not only does the cramped “bottle movie” format help the game achieve that oppressive Silent Hill atmosphere, but the player becomes all too familiar with Henry’s apartment after repeated visits. The first-person perspective shift in the apartment also aids in evoking a sense of intimacy, a brilliant way to increase the player’s immersion in the setting. The residence may not be on the streets of Silent Hill, but the atmosphere has been effectively translated. It almost makes Silent Hill 3’s reversion back to the town seem like a cop-out.

Of course, executing something of a “bottle movie” in a video game would be downright boring, so Silent Hill 4 finds a way to give the player more legroom without sacrificing the intended feeling of claustrophobia. Henry’s only mobile outlet outside the confines of his roomy prison is a hole in his bathroom with a diameter wide enough to burrow through, a sure-fire sign that Henry will not be  will not be getting his security deposit back. It's like in Being John Malkovich. Instead of co-piloting the consciousness of an A-list Hollywood actor at the end of the tunnel, Henry finds himself in the pits of Silent Hill, or at least that’s what the player assumes. In each setting Henry arrives at after journeying through the hole’s tight crevices, there is only one other person around who isn’t an enemy. They’ll either follow Henry like a dog looking for an exit or pop up occasionally when least expected. However, none of these people survive as they are brutally murdered with methods so eclectic that Dr. Phibes would be impressed. Their deaths signal the end of the levels as Henry wakes up in a confused stupor thinking that it was all a dream. Suspiciously, the people that die in Henry’s “dreams” die in real life with serial numbers etched into their bodies to lead the Ashfield police department into a murder conspiratorial goose chase. While the cops try their best to wrap their heads around who could’ve committed these murders, only Henry can apprehend the Freddy Krueger figure.

A series like Silent Hill should subvert people’s expectations. Still, the unorthodox premise and setting of Silent Hill 4 seem incongruous enough to make even the most open-minded of Silent Hill fans apprehensive. Fortunately, Team Silent sprinkles in traces of familiarity to keep the fans from writing it out of the series canon. For one, Henry is such a fitting protagonist for the series, for better or worse. His total aloofness and scrawny, everyman disposition exemplify the archetypal protagonist of the series so well that it verges on parody. Heather’s emotive capacity resembling normal human reactions was too lifelike for Team Silent, so they regressed by making the next game’s protagonist a bachelor-era version of her dad. Like Harry before, Harry seems only slightly puzzled by what is happening around him. Being ensnared in his apartment and its harrowing implications, plus the expanding hole in his bathroom where audible weeping is often heard, only makes Henry tilt his head in confusion like a German Shepherd. Many argue that he lacks personable charisma and is the most useless protagonist across the four Team Silent-developed games, and they’d be correct. However, after four games, one can’t deny that Henry epitomizes the schmuck-like essence we’ve come to associate the protagonists of the series with to a capital T.

Silent Hill 4 connects itself with the previous games in the franchise mostly through lore. Walter Sullivan is a notorious serial killer whose brief mention in a Silent Hill 2 journal can be missed in a blink of an eye. In Silent Hill 4, Walter’s role has been elevated to the responsibility of connecting the game with its predecessors. The readable passage found in the journal states that Walter committed suicide in his prison cell by crudely stabbing himself in the neck with a spoon. Because of this, the Ashfield police force is grievously concerned that Walter’s death has been prematurely declared, and he’s on the loose again. Either that or a copycat killer has taken his place and is finishing what he started. One might think the Ashfield police are paranoid, but there is a clear indication that their deduction might not be that farfetched. A message inside Henry’s front apartment door says, “don’t go out,” signed by Walter in blood. The supernatural mystery element hasn’t been present in Silent Hill since the second game and is an aspect of Silent Hill 4 that elevates its intrigue.

A doofus protagonist and placing an obscure lore character in the limelight is essentially the extent of Silent Hill 4’s connectedness to the rest of the series. Everything else in Silent Hill 4 that is reminiscent of Silent Hill’s properties and foundation feels off-puttingly askew. In his apartment, Henry might gingerly traipse around in the first-person perspective. Once he crawls through the hole, the places in which he finds himself reorient everything back to the third-person perspective along with the rigid controls the series is known for. Silent Hill 4’s “dream” areas outside of Henry’s apartment would be the equivalent of the “dungeons” seen in the other games: buildings and other similar establishments with multiple floors that offer a course of consecutive objectives that will eventually lead to an end goal, inspired by Resident Evil and also The Legend of Zelda to a lesser extent. I’d be hard-pressed to refer to these areas in the same breath as the “dungeons” from the previous games because their designs resemble nothing of the richly layered dungeon areas we’ve been familiarized with. Silent Hill 4’s areas are as if the developers took the areas of the previous three games and put them in a microwave, warping their foundation and thus compromising their stark structure. Many of these levels are more free-flowing, with the vast majority of doors and passageways open to the player instead of most of them being permanently blocked off. In the previous games, the few accessible portions of the dungeons signal the player to keep note of its contents. When the player can enter and exit most rooms willy-nilly, it’s anyone’s guess where the key items could be and what to do with them. I particularly dislike the sections where Henry has to return to his apartment and perform a task to progress in a level because it’s incredibly unclear. It breaks the rationale of the dream-reality dichotomy the levels and the apartment should have. Can Henry seriously believe these are dreams when he can consciously return to them with something he retrieved from the real world or is he that fucking dense? The developers attempted to capture that abstract Silent Hill progression with new features and practices, but it’s far too unhinged in execution. At the same time, the decreased amount of layers to these levels dilutes the Silent Hill design too drastically. That, and the sequential order of levels with titles like “Subway World, Forest World, Water Prison World, etc.” makes them feel jarringly “video-gamey,” like children pretend-playing “Super Mario” around their hometown.

The atmosphere is a crucial element of any exemplary Silent Hill title. An authentic one should carry an aura of dread, despair, and a level of varying tension around every corner. Silent Hill 4 establishes a sense of unease with the apartment premise, and the dingy levels are certainly Silent Hill-esque. However, Silent Hill 4 does not deliver the same caliber of dirge and grotesquery compared to the previous games. I’d comment that the “otherworld” is another Silent Hill staple that has also been redacted, but I suppose the levels on the other side of the hole act as an alternate dimension in principle. Bloody viscera no longer drapes over the fleshy walls, and the architecture isn’t supported by sterile, jet-black industrial steel. Each level in Silent Hill 4 merely persists at a standard base of intensity that one would expect to become progressively more surreal and horrific, judging from the examples set by the previous games. The game has its standout moments, like the giant head found in the hospital, but it does not compare to the freakishly twisted “otherworld” that we are accustomed to. Silent Hill 4 even omits the flashlight because every level is accommodatingly lit. Considering this is a game from the same series that made people start drinking espresso at night because they were too scared to fall asleep, the visuals are kind of lame.

The developers still try to remind the player that while Silent Hill 4 makes plenty of offbeat decisions, it is still a bonafide survival horror experience. To emphasize this notion, Silent Hill 4 borrows the limited inventory space similar to that seen in the early Resident Evil titles. While limiting the player’s inventory space is intended to make the game feel tenser, I’ve stated before that this practice is only irritating and tedious whenever a game does this. Silent Hill 4 is no different. Items are placed more generously compared to the scarce encounter rate of Silent Hill 3. Still, the limited inventory system often makes finding items inconvenient. Every item, from the healing items, key items, weapons, ammunition, etc., takes up an individual spot in an inventory that totals 8-10 individual items without ever expanding. Not even the primitive system from the first Resident Evil game made the player hold each magazine of bullets in multiples of ten, so Silent Hill 4’s incorporation of it is more of a regression than a homage. The rationale of the limited inventory system on the part of the developers is most likely that Henry can easily return to his apartment by reentering the smattering of holes located around each level and reorganizing his arsenal via the chest storage unit. Due to the plentiful amount of items and keys strewn across each level, they will be forced to retreat into the whole for an inventory dump a nauseating amount of times, compromising the rift of surrealness between the levels and the apartment even further.

Fortunately, Henry will never need too many items on hand most of the time because the game is by far the easiest of the Silent Hill games developed by Team Silent. The game might be a bit roundabout and nebulous, but the player won’t have much to worry about while scrambling through the levels. The new health system is one main aspect Silent Hill 4 adjusts might attribute to its greater sense of ease. As I’m sure any Silent Hill fan would recall, the previous games displayed the protagonist’s health in the pause menu with colors that signified the approximate level of health the player had, ranging from a healthy green/blue to a ruinous red. Henry’s health is instead exhibited across the top left corner of the screen with a lengthy health bar with the same color pallets. Henry also must have been a varsity athlete in his youth (or he’s too dumb to properly register pain) because he’s the most resilient of the Silent Hill protagonists when it comes to taking damage. Any gnawing at his legs from the Sniffer canines or a mighty bitch slap from the abominable Repulsion-like Wall Men or the cloaked Twin Victims only reduces a sliver of Henry’s health. Henry hardly has to use either of his two firearms because the array of melee weapons will beat most enemies into submission with little difficulty, and he can charge up a swing with any of these weapons for a one-hit KO. It’s refreshing after dealing with the enemies in Silent Hill 3, who were as durable as demonic cockroaches. If all of the middling damage Henry endures starts to accumulate and turns his health bar less-than-blue, don’t bother freeing up an inventory slot by consuming a health drink (sorry, “nutrition drink.” Is Ashfield Silent Hill’s Shelbyville or something?) Simply backtracking a few yards down and returning to Henry’s apartment via one of the holes will restore all of Henry’s health, for the comfort of reality has healing powers, apparently. The red notebook on the side table in Henry’s living room is also the game’s only save point, but it can be accessed in any revisit from the hole. Everything feels too facile, but don’t get too suckered in as I did.

My declaration that Silent Hill 4 was the easiest Silent Hill title was intentionally misleading. While everything I listed above is true, it was merely a ruse to lull me into keeping my guard down. I’ve never been duped so drastically by a game’s difficulty curve before playing Silent Hill 4, for the second half of this game is the rudest of all rude awakenings I’ve experienced in any video game. As the game progresses, the killings in the murderer’s itinerary get literally too close to home for Henry. A man named Richard from the apartment complex is electrocuted. Shortly after that, the murderer pursues Eileen Galvin, the woman who lives next door, who Henry peeps on from time to time. However, the murderer does a shoddy job with Eileen and merely maims her. Eileen is taken to an obligatory hospital level to treat her grievous wounds, and Henry comes to rescue her and take her to a safe place. If the implications of the last sentence weren’t clear enough, let me spell it out more bluntly: the ENTIRE second half of Silent Hill 4 is an escort mission. Once I realized this, my heart sank into my stomach, and I felt like I was going to be violently ill.

An escort mission that spans an entire half of a game sounds painful enough, but there are so many other factors stacked onto an already terrible idea that make the second half of Silent Hill 4 borderline insufferable. As one could imagine, the inherent vexations of an escort mission are having to support someone who is more vulnerable and does not hold their weight in defense or offense. I suppose there have been worse escorts in gaming than Eileen because at least she can aid in combat with her character-specific weapons. Alas, everything else about her presence feels like Henry has an anchor chained to his ankle. Eileen is fairly weak due to being wounded and cannot run as quickly as Henry. She cannot climb up ladders because of her affliction, forcing the player to take more circuitous routes to accommodate her. She’ll nag at Henry to slow down constantly, but the last time I checked, her leg wasn’t the broken body part. Perhaps the fucking high-heeled shoes she insists on wearing make her handicapped, but I digress. Because Henry will constantly move at a more leisurely pace to oblige Eileen, the game becomes far tenser. The ghosts, the stand-out invincible game's enemies that can only be deterred and not fully vanquished, can no longer be evaded with ease as Eileen dragging her feet behind Henry gives them ample opportunity to kill Henry. In passages with any number of ghosts in the second half, the player will be screaming the title of a Dexy’s Midnight Runners song at the game until their voice is hoarse. Curiously enough, Eileen doesn’t possess an individual health bar. Instead, she had an “insanity meter” that the player cannot interpret. If Eileen is damaged significantly or left alone for too long, she’ll become “cursed, " making her look as bloodied as Carrie White. When she is cursed, she’ll start to damage Henry. After all the criticism RE4 gets for Ashley Graham, it’s a wonder why the same isn’t the case for Eileen in Silent Hill 4. Leon is simply doing his job, but who knows what motivates Henry to endure this grueling escapade. Spoiler alert, Henry: she's not going to fuck you.

To make matters worse, Henry’s apartment no longer heals him after returning from the hole, so stock up on healing items like you’re preparing for a nuclear holocaust. Signaling the second half of the game withdraws the apartment’s healing powers as the entire place is penetrated by vengeful spirits that put the entire place under a curse. Appliances will start acting erratically, like the cabin from Evil Dead II, and getting close will damage Henry more than any enemy could. The only way to combat these curses is by using the holy candle or a saint medallion found in the levels. Even after alleviating these curses, they will still appear periodically, so the curse will never be attenuated entirely. While this process is a chore, it is the most unnerving aspect of the game. All that molly-coddling the room did with healing Henry’s boo-boos was meant to illustrate the comfort people feel in their homes. If invaders defile that sense of security, it’s one of the most distressing terrors someone can experience. Suddenly, the spot that once served as a place of respite is comparatively more hostile than the levels through the hole, and the player feels as if nowhere is safe.

Besides being yet another second-half encumbrance, this marks a pivotal point in the narrative. Silent Hill 4’s The mystery of Henry’s detainment in his apartment and its connection with the game’s antagonist is revealed in disturbing detail. Walter, or his spirit, is indeed the culprit behind the new crop of murders and is finishing the job he started long ago. His methodology for his killings exposes much about his tragic, sordid past. Walter was abandoned by his mother and left to live in an orphanage in Silent Hill, the prison-like “Water Prison” level. Like most prisoners, Walter finds comfort in religion, but no one should seek out the kind of religion Silent Hill is serving. The cult’s teachings lead Walter to the “21 Sacraments,” a cleansing ritual involving the murders of 21 people. In doing this, Walter believes that he will be reunited with Henry’s apartment, who he believes is his birth mother (yeah, it’s weird). Upon returning to Henry’s apartment with Eileen, the game's final level is their apartment complex. It is now a visual representation of how Walter perceives the place as his birth spot, with placenta ooze covering the walls and the sounds of a woman in labor. It’s unsettling, to say the least. Henry is the last intended victim of the murders, so Walter has been preserving him in his apartment like a farmer who keeps livestock before the slaughter. Henry stops Walter as the game’s final (and only) boss, and the few good endings entail a happy ending for Eileen and Harry. However, it’s the worst ending that ironically is the most impactful. Despite defeating him, Walter still succeeds in infiltrating Henry’s apartment if Henry neglects both Eileen and the apartment. The child version of Walter that pops up occasionally lies comfortably on the couch, happy that he has finally reunited with his mom. I think this ending is the more satisfying because it focuses on the most interesting character of the game. We don’t start to condone Walter’s actions, but uncovering his past through the plot and the readable notes definitely makes him a sympathetic villain. His motives are also interesting and connect to the game’s central theme of security, which are intertwined with some compelling Freudian themes we haven’t touched on since Silent Hill 2.

Silent Hill 4: The Room is fucking bizarre, and I can’t make heads or tails of it. The game is an acquired taste for those who seek out the esoteric, and I thought I was one of those people when the retreaded ground of Silent Hill 3 left me slightly unsatiated. After playing it, I am left more bewildered than satisfied. I appreciate Team Silent’s pension for subversion and their attempt to reinvigorate the franchise with creative ideas, but it all falls apart in execution. Silent Hill 4’s gameplay is one big contradiction. Some aspects are far too leisurely while others like the prolonged escort mission are the most punishing the series has ever been. All the while, the level design feels both simplified and knotty. The narrative also doesn’t save the gameplay because the story is just as tangled. My summation of the story only focused on the positives because if I included all of the confusing plot holes that don’t make a lick of sense, this review would be twice its length. It’s all a giant mess. One could argue that I wouldn’t be as critical if the game were a new IP, but this game still feels like a Silent Hill experience. It’s just the first entry in the series that missed its mark with everything except for creative ingenuity. I’ve always argued vociferously that video games should be treated as art, but should the artistic elements of a video game excuse the tawdry gameplay and narrative aspects? Using Silent Hill 4 as an example, I’m not sure I have an answer to that question.

Destroy All Humans! Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 10/14/2022)

[Image from igdb.com]

Destroy All Humans!

Developer: Pandemic

Publisher: THQ

Genre(s): Third-Person Shooter

Platforms: PS2, Xbox

Release Date: June 21, 2005

The 1950s were an overrated time in history. It was the first full post-war World War II decade that began the information age that we are still currently living in, marked by a greater emphasis on progressing social changes and the quality of human life once we maximized exploration and industry production in decades prior. The economic boom created by the impact of WWII ushered in an era of prosperity, and it seemed like the American dream had come true. Squeaky-clean, conservative values defined the idyllic society that the 1950s upheld: waspy nuclear families where dad wore a suit and tie to his 9 to 5, and mom stayed home all day making dad dinner and cleaning the house. At the same time, little Timmy played baseball with his friends, and little Susie played with her dolls. Not only was the American dream of the 1950s eerily pristine, but it was also boring. Even the leather-jacketed, rock-and-roll counterculture seems like a quaint facet of the decade, or maybe we have Fonzie to thank for making a mockery of it. To retain this halcyon society, the 1950s upheld a strong sense of conformity with zero leeway for any abstract thought or anything outside the very anglo-centric, heteronormative bubble encapsulating the decade. Extreme examples include the Red Scare and all of the anti-gay propaganda. Jim Crow segregation was still in full effect! Fortunately, we’ve progressed substantially past this point in our history. Because the ideals of the 1950s seem antiquated and corny, the decade is ripe for being made fun of. Five decades later, Destroy All Humans! serves as a lampoon of 1950’s culture in the medium of gaming.

In reality, the idealized society that 1950s America portrayed was a lie. One can’t forget that despite the picturesque facade, the dread of the Cold War permeated through the atmosphere. Americans expressed their fears of a looming alien threat through horror cinema. Instead of the gothic monsters that were a source of escapism for Americans during the 1930s, horror media transformed into the science-fiction latent horrors that projected our fears of burgeoning technology and the invaders that might possess it. Of course, the alien depictions seen in films were an embellishment. However, they did represent real-life anxieties. Destroy All Humans’ satirical scope takes the direction of tributing “atomic age” horror by setting up the premise of an alien invasion of Earth in the 1950s. The game’s high-concept science fiction plot is that an alien race from the far reaches of the galaxy called the Furons are running low on the genetic supply they use as fuel for their cloning devices, for their microscopic genitalia prevent them from reproducing sexually. They discover that Earth and its inhabitants possess a similar DNA, so Furon imperialist official Orthropox sends one of their warriors, Crypto Sporidium-136, down to earth to conduct a takeover of Earth and harvest their brain stems. Unfortunately for them, complications arise when Crypto goes AWOL, so his clone 137 is sent to find his whereabouts.

Of course, the films always assuaged everyone’s fears with their resolutions. Chaos ensues, and the city is in ruins, but at least the humans were always victorious over the invaders in the end. In the mid-2000s, however, there were no longer the sheltered sensibilities of the 1950s to abide by. The core difference between those films and Destroy All Humans is that the story is from the villainous perspective of the invaders, and Crypto is the playable protagonist. The heroic, defensive role of the humans seen in horror movies of the era is entirely flipped on its head. Surprisingly, this wasn’t just a subversive deviation of the atomic age horror film. So many video games featured human supersoldiers like Master Chief and Duke Nukem mowing down aliens as the Earth’s badass, benevolent protectors. As fun as spraying intergalactic monsters with a full magazine is, Grand Theft Auto taught gamers that there’s a certain thrill in being the bad guy. The player’s mission is not to save mankind from aliens but to bring them to their knees as their enemies.

To illustrate how easy it would be to usurp Earth from under the humans, the Furons have tasked the full-scale invasion with one soldier. Crypto Sporidium (or simply Crypto for brevity) may be patronized for his short stature and ignorantly referred to as the wrong color, but he’s not to be underestimated. If you didn’t know, his name is a direct reference to a parasite, an appropriate name for the small, malevolent threat he is. This one-man plague from outer space has nothing but anger and destruction behind those bulbous, amber eyes and fierce contempt behind his derisive sneer. He isn’t merely a pawn caught up in the imperialist interests of his species: he’s a scrappy little devil who revels in the carnage. Crypto also makes up for his gangly dwarfism with psychic powers that elevate his stature over any human being. His psychokinesis powers are the first of his abilities that the player gets to tinker with when holding down the left trigger. Holding people, animals, and vehicles in the air is both amusing and debasing enough, but the real thrill of the power comes with launching them across the map with the force of a sonic boom. The controls and point of the trajectory may not be as accurate or refined as, say, the Gravity Gun from Half-Life 2. Still, the overall execution of what the move is intended to do is functional, and the borderline broken ragdoll physics makes Crypto’s power seem more otherworldly. Crypto's other extraordinary powers are in the same left trigger menu as psychokinesis. Pressing the circle button while targeting someone will activate the “holobob,” and Crypto will take the holographic form of that person to blend in with the crowd. The disguise seems shoddily transparent to me, but I think its effectiveness is intended to drive the point that people are stupidly unobservant. If Crypto’s ruse is compromised, he can hypnotize people to create a distraction, usually making them do some dance or impersonate Elvis Presley. He can also bend people's will with the same action to make them sometimes do his bidding. Out of all these abilities, the most shocking is the “extract” option which sees Crypto expending a lot of his mental energy to pop someone’s head like a grape as their mucus-covered brain ejects itself from their body with a visceral squelchy sound. Crypto’s abilities, especially the last one, are the stuff of nightmares.

If all of Crypto’s innate abilities don’t sound exciting (or terrifying) enough, he’s also got a whole host of cosmic weapons in his arsenal. Destroy All Humans only offers four firearms for Crypto that are acquired one by one as the game progresses, but they cover all the bases. The player will first become acquainted with the Zap-O-Matic, which expels a violent current of pure electricity as the target(s) convulse in screaming agony. It makes a taser gun look like a hand buzzer by comparison. If the player is looking to dispose of people more quickly, the fiery blast of the Disintegrator Ray will reduce them to nothing but their skeleton, which will turn to ash and blow away with the wind. The remote-triggered grenade launcher called the Ion Detonator achieves the same effect as the Disintegrator Ray but with a blast radius that dissipates the molecular structure of several people along with vehicles. The anal probe involves charging up a shot of some green goop that will burrow inside a human and make them clutch their asscheeks while sprinting before their head explodes. It’s not a practical weapon for combat, but retrieving the brain stem in a fresher state instead of extracting it after death will net Crypto more DNA currency. Crypto’s saucer expands an already deadly array of weaponry to biblical proportions. The four weapons available for the spacecraft mirror the four Crypto uses on foot but on a greater scale of destruction. The Death Ray is held down until the gauge runs out like the Zap-O-Matic, but unleashes a red hot beam of energy. The explosive Sonic Boom and Quantum Deconstructors have the same relationship as the Disintegrator Ray, and the Ion Detonator in that one is the lighter, more plentiful version of the other. The saucer also features an Abducto Beam that grabs vehicles and suspends them in midair, but this is more for novelty than for anything useful. With so many ways to annihilate, Crypto’s versatility makes him an incredibly thrilling character to play as.

While the humans are outmatched against Crypto, they refuse to go down without a fight. We’re the dominant species on this planet for a reason, and our tenacity in the face of danger is certainly a fraction of that reason. After too many screams and shoutings of “little green men''(!!!), the cavalry will come to dispose of Crypto with all the firepower they’ve got. However, the severity of defense ranges depending on Crypto’s presence. It’s here where Destroy All Humans explicitly borrows from GTA, as the alert levels mirror those from that series. The blue exclamation point signifies that Crypto had been spotted if people's yelps and derogatory comments didn’t already give the player that hint. The anguished cries of the people will then alert the police, then the army, which includes tank infantry. The last alert level involves the black-suit-wearing federal agents known as the Majestic, who will ambush Crypto with futuristic, government-grade guns and pile up their black cars in the road like a New Jersey tailgate. Every faction will accumulate with one another to aid in an all-out war against Crypto, with heat-seeking missile launchers taking the skies if Crypto uses his saucer. It escalates to total pandemonia, like in any atomic-age horror film.

The scale of blowback from the humans coinciding with the alert levels also depends on where Crypto is causing a disturbance. Six areas serve as the levels of Destroy All Humans, all on American soil, with an eclectic variety to showcase the amplitude of this great nation. All six levels are also themed around areas where aliens are typically known to invade from the lore of science fiction films and loony conspirators. Each subsequent level also gets progressively more chaotic and increases the presence of their defenses. The first level is the humdrum Turnipseed Farm, an appropriate genesis point for the game considering crop circles on farms are noted as the first indications of alien sightings, and the remote nature of it makes for a less jumbled tutorial level. Rockwell's small, middle-America town is an obvious nod to Roswell, and Santa Modesta ditches the country rubes for middle-class, white picket-fenced “Leave it to Beaver-land” suburbanites. Area 42 signals a stark shift of severity as the obvious parody-sanctioned nod to Area 51 consists of nothing but soldiers, Majestic agents, and giant defense robots that stomp around the grounds. The last area, Capital City, is essentially Washington D.C. with another name. The defenses in America’s capital are naturally as vigilant and combative as vaccine antibodies, and Crypto is the virus. The hazy port of Union Town is a place in between Area 42 and the capital that somewhat fits the progression, with everything from schmucks, socialites, and agents running around. All these areas are unique, yet a part of me wishes that they expanded past the USA.

Of course, featuring levels in other countries would be counterintuitive to the game's satirical substance. America makes up the entire map of the game because America was the only place that mattered in the xenophobic 1950s. In fact, the people aren’t running away from Crypto because he’s an alien from outer space. Their fears stem from confusing him for a Ruskie communist who “wants to destroy our way of life,” as a hysterical joe-schmoe character on the street will exclaim. The ignorant irony of the situation is the crux of the satire and while the parallels seem all too obvious, Destroy All Humans is still one of the funniest games I’ve ever played. One of my favorite things to do in the game is using the holobob disguise and reading the minds of the people out on the town. Plus, it’s the only way to extend the mirage by refueling Crypto’s mind power gauge. It conjures up the hypothetical scenario of Twitter being around in the 1950s with inane yet illuminating thoughts ranging from character-specific stereotypes and ersatz homosexual desires to cultural references and intentional anachronisms. No matter whose mind Crypto is reading, every thought is just as funny as the next. An exceptional aspect that boosts the humor is the stellar voice acting. Besides all the screaming the general humans do, the expressiveness and tonality of their speaking voices are perfect for encapsulating the clueless, old-world airheadedness of 1950’s American citizens depicted in films from this time. Why are the cops in every American town Irish? Because it sounds funny. Also, the Dragnet-sounding way the Majestic agents speak always cracks me up. Richard Horvitz performs an over-the-top version of his Invader Zim voice with the maniacal Pox, and the shameless Jack Nicholson impression makes Crypto’s voice delightful. The banter between the two is especially humorous with their contrasting vocal cadences.

With all of its positive aspects in mind, why isn’t Destroy All Humans as well regarded as Grand Theft Auto or any of the other games from the PS2 era where the player plays as morally reprehensible protagonists? Sadly, Destroy All Humans is marred with more mistakes and questionable features than I remember. Besides a few unattractive graphical glitches, the game doesn’t foster freedom as well as it should. Destroy All Humans is ostensibly a stealth game, and not just in particular situations in missions. A Grand Theft Auto protagonist has to cause chaos to prompt a heavy-duty SWAT team to come after him, but all Crypto has to do is simply be around the humans minding his own business. The alert level will still increase drastically without even touching a hair on any human’s head. This, coupled with the high number of defensive factions firing at Crypto at all angles, makes later levels insufferable to roam around. All the while, earlier levels like Turnipseed Farm and Rockwell are too quiet, making Santa Modesta the only choice level for free roaming. It doesn’t help that if Crypto dies, the player is escorted back to the main menu of the Mothership. Narratively, this is because Crypto has to be cloned again here after dying, but it makes for a tedious demerit for the player. Crypto also can’t last too long in the later stages because he’s far too fragile. Granted, Crypto shouldn’t be too well-equipped, considering all of his offensive advantages, so then why does the game offer upgrades? On the Mothership, Pox sells upgrades in exchange for a certain amount of DNA. Everything except Crypto’s health can be upgraded, and this is something he desperately needs. The stampede of everything will kill Crypto in seconds if he doesn’t run away, and that’s simply not in character. Even the fall damage taken from falling too far after the jetpack craps out depletes much of Crypto’s health for comfort. I do not want to feel like a sitting duck while playing as a decked-out space invader.

The game also has an erratic sense of pacing. Most people claim that Destroy All Humans becomes far too difficult as the game progresses, but I disagree that it’s due to the missions. The mission difficulty curve is incredibly wonky, with middle-game missions like the stealthy escort mission “Duck and Cover” causing so much grief and Capital City missions like “The Furon Filibuster” being so underwhelmingly simple. The length of these missions throughout the game also ranges drastically, with some missions having six different objectives and some having a measly one. Longer missions also seem to be employed just to make the mission a test of endurance. The last mission in the Capital, “Attack of the 50-Foot President,” is only considered difficult by the masses because of the cheap extension of two different boss fights without checkpoints. Individually, the executive monster android with the president’s brain and Silhouette, the female leader of the Majestic, wouldn’t have drawn any frustration because they’re both unimpressive boss fights. The same goes for the fight against General Armquist, which is just a more durable robot enemy. I think the developers tried their best to expedite the story so the player could return to killing people of their own volition, but I’ve already expressed the complications with this.

Destroy All Humans! sounds like the greatest game ever on paper. The premise of playing as a sadistic little alien bastard invading the Earth and firing down a bombardment of death and destruction should’ve made for one of the greatest games of all time, and it was a favorite among my friends and me when it came out because of the amount of mayhem we could make. As an adult, I now appreciate other facets of the game, like its humorous dialogue and the spoofing of 1950s culture that flew over my head when I was younger. Unfortunately, I can’t appreciate this game as much as I did when it was released, and this isn’t due to being spoiled by gaming’s progress as a medium. Destroy All Humans doesn’t feel as free as similar games from its era, and the spotty campaign could’ve used a little more love and care. Even for its glaring faults, Destroy All Humans! still manages to be a good source of maniacal, misanthropic fun.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 10/9/2022)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Genre(s): Metroidvania

Platforms: PS1

Release Date: March 20, 1997

Throughout my reviews, I mention the Metroidvania genre constantly. Even if I’m not discussing a game that fits comfortably in the realm of the niche 2D platformer subgenre, games that borrow Metroidvania elements always receive my praise for emulating its impeccable game design. Nintendo crafted Zebes as a non-linear maze for the player to get lost in and succumb to the dread of total isolation, fitting for a franchise set in an alien world in outer space. For ten years, Metroid owned this style of progression and world-building for itself, seemingly because no one was confident enough to effectively attempt to mirror the franchise’s idiosyncratic design. However, there is a reason why the “vania'' portion is the latter half of the genre’s name, and Castlevania is obviously the source. Up until the first 3D generation of gaming, Castlevania spent the previous generations as one of Nintendo’s prime third-party series, whose notoriously high difficulty helped cement a brutal legacy for every 2D platformer of the pixelated era of gaming. After several games involving the Belmonts, side-scrolling their way up Dracula’s grand, gothic estate, the series was due for a change. Castlevania experimented once with their second game, Simon’s Quest, and bombed to unforeseen proportions in gaming. After ten years of Castlevania, the series had enough of a footing with more established tropes and properties to subvert. To expand the parameters of the series, Konami was bold enough to take more than a generous helping of Metroid’s core design. Their end product, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, overtly used Metroid’s world design and sense of progression while masking it with Castlevania’s properties. However, Symphony of the Night was not a mediocre Metroid pastiche. In fact, Symphony of the Night was so exemplary that it was the single game that made people coin the term Metroidvania. Symphony of the Night gave the Metroidvania genre more credence, using its design to translate Metroid’s elements to an unfamiliar environment.

I speculate that using (Super) Metroid as a template was not Konami’s initial decision when crafting Symphony of the Night. For the Castlevania game that made the most radical shift in direction, Symphony of the Night is ironically a direct sequel to another Castlevania game, something seldom done in the series. Symphony of the Night begins as a remixed ending of Rondo of Blood (or Castlevania X for western audiences) as Richter has reached his penultimate climb up to Dracula. In this revamped version of Rondo of Blood’s climax, Richter and Dracula parley a heated debate about Dracula’s role as an omnipotent oppressor of mankind and if people want and deserve his presence even if it carries with it a miasma of misery. The wine glass that smashes after Dracula tosses it to the ground signals that it’s time to duel, and it’s a recreation of the final fight from Rondo of Blood (and, thankfully, not Castlevania X). After Richter defeats Dracula (either on his own or with the help of Maria if the player falters), a reel of exposition introduces Symphony of the Night. Richter, the most recent Belmont to vanquish Dracula, has mysteriously disappeared on the night of a full moon. Dracula’s castle has also prematurely erected only after four years after Dracula’s last defeat instead of the approximate hundred-year timespan. Something fishy is afoot, and Maria searches for Richter while Alucard takes it upon himself to wake from his century-spanning slumber to defeat his father.

Castlevania markedly started their open relationship status with Nintendo in the 16-bit generation if Rondo of Blood and the Sega-produced Bloodlines are evident enough. Thank God Konami continued to “play the field” with other consoles because Symphony of the Night would not have been executed the same way if the series had been confined to Nintendo consoles. During the early 3D era, Nintendo was hellbent on making sprites along with the 2D perspective obsolete practices of a then-recent bygone era, like when “talkies” emerged and completely ousted the silent films of the 1920s. In the wake of their wild ambitions, Nintendo failed to realize that not every 2D platformer series would translate beautifully to 3D, with Castlevania 64 being a notable example of this among the myriad failed attempts. Genesis owners were treated to a Castlevania alternative with Bloodlines, but the PS1 was the optimal system to own for the quintessential fifth-generation Castlevania experience. The key behind Sony’s success with Castlevania, where Nintendo failed, was letting the developers expand on what they had already established generations prior instead of wiping the slate clean in a new dimensional space. Symphony of the Night proves that 16-bit graphics are not the pinnacle of refined pixelated visuals because the graphics of Symphony of the Night are breathtaking. The 32-bit graphics intended to render the most primitive 3D aesthetics made for the most gorgeous pixel art in a video game. Colors are as eclectic as par for the Castlevania course, but the refinement in the visuals captures a balance between the striking lights and the deep, dark hues to create a grand atmosphere that straddles a line between moody and bombastic. Backgrounds are stunningly detailed, more so than any other Castlevania before it. The resplendent sprite work of the foregrounds looks more realistic than any of the 3D polygons of the era. Symphony of the Night is the peak of 2D Castlevania’s visuals. We wouldn’t have known that pixel art could look as crisp and intricate if Sony borrowed Nintendo’s initiative to eliminate gaming of the visual style altogether. I wish other games on the PS1 followed suit by continuing the pixelated sidescroller format.

While the visuals defied the fifth-generation initiative of 3D, Symphony of the Night is still guilty of possessing some new features still in their primeval stages of development. Rondo of Blood’s PC engine featured snippets of compressed lines of voiced dialogue, but fortunately, it was used on rare occasions. In Symphony of the Night, the voice acting is far more commonplace, and it’s as awkward as one would expect. “Die, you monster! You don’t belong in this world!” and “What is a man?! A miserable little pile of secrets!” from the opening conversation between Dracula and Richter make up what is surprisingly some of the most notable lines of video game dialogue, albeit if its popularity stems from ironic snark rather than genuine reverence in the same league as “All your base are belong to us” from Zero Wing. Conversations between characters usually involve Alucard speaking to someone, and I’m not entirely satisfied with the voice actor’s tone for the character. Maria Renard might be all grown up years after Rondo of Blood, but the husky, mature voice she has sounds like she’s aged fifty years instead of five. The voiced dialogue is yet another indication of poor, directionless voice acting in the early 3D era. Still, there is something about the bravado and enthusiasm of the vocal delivery that makes it endearing, elevating it above other examples of fifth-generation voicework. It’s surprisingly passable, but it’s a low bar to hurdle over.

Every other aspect of Symphony of the Night is dedicated to broadening the elements presented in the previous Castlevania titles. The Metroidvania genre is not so far removed from its 2D platformer progenitor, but rather, it acts as a thicker expansion of its tropes and general format. Levels in traditional 2D platformers, namely every Castlevania before Symphony of the Night, are linear paths that the player must survive and make it to a spot that serves as a goal. Branching routes may be offered, but regardless of the player's direction, each alternate path eventually leads to the same conclusion. The locations in Metroidvania games also have an end goal, but the game forces the player to reach that goal through more circuitous means with less urgency. On top of that, the levels are connected so fluidly that I’d be hard-pressed to refer to them as “levels.” Rather, they are areas of a more sprawling, interconnected world. It’s easy to forget when playing a Castlevania game that each level is restricted to the confines of Dracula’s castle because of how varied and spacious they seem to be. Bringing Castlevania’s epochal setting to the format of a Metroidvania game not only makes sense because of the closed off, yet spacious parameters it upholds, but it adds a sense of cohesion to the towering, gothic manor. The castle’s components are essentially the same as we’ve seen it several times over at this point. Now, the settings get to breathe as the player becomes privy to the estate layout without any vague blips in between sections made by the typical 2D platformer format. The only section usually in a Castlevania that is unfortunately omitted is the grounds outside, most likely to maintain the cohesive setting of the castle. The only time we see the forest outside the castle is at the beginning when Alucard is bull-charging through them to get to the closing castle gate in time, like Indiana Jones, sans the recovery of a hat once he makes it in time.

Dracula’s Castle makes for the perfect Metroidvania world, but its execution carries an entirely different ethos to the maps in Metroid. Not only were Super Metroid’s areas meant to cause claustrophobia, but the sense of digging deeper into the rabbit hole of uncharted territory made the tension grow tighter as if the oxygen was getting thinner with every inch. Symphony of the Night, on the other hand, does not want to frame Dracula’s castle as a vacuous haunted house where the exits are all rusted shut. Instead, the game wants the player to revel in its magnificence. Symphony of the Night takes the opposite approach to Super Metroid’s deep excavation and makes the singular setting of Dracula’s castle monumental in scope. The player still feels overwhelmed by the setting but in a more awe-striking manner rather than a discomforting one. Dracula’s castle has always felt massive from the individual portions of it we’ve seen in previous titles, but imagine each of those levels as a seamless amalgamation thanks to the gift of non-linearity. The map here is even larger than the alien worlds that make up the collective of Super Metroid’s map, with four transport rooms available in different sections of the castle. Symphony of the Night emulates the feeling of getting lost in a celebrity’s million-dollar mansion, a tribute to the Count that accents his eminence and ego.

Another factor of the castle’s vastness can also be attributed to lenient restrictions on exploration. Objects and heights that hinder progression in this nonlinear world are essential to the essence of a Metroidvania game, but Symphony of the Night uses these elements sparingly. Except for a few areas, the player can scrounge around most of the areas in Dracula’s Castle without being halted by too many barriers. A sparse number of snags in the castle halls is made to elevate its scope, but isn’t this counterintuitive to the Metroidvania design? Shouldn’t every castle corner be littered with roadblocks to uphold what Super Metroid established? As it turns out, not necessarily. Symphony of the Night has made me realize that constant progression restraints in Metroidvania games can be vexing. Points of inhibition garner interest, but offering too many of them in close quarters, especially at the start, can disenfranchise the player. It works in Metroid's strained environment, but Castlevania never intended to feel cramped. The player has the ability to run from one side of the map to the other right at the beginning, never halting the player’s sense of wonder and awe with exploration. The small number of obstructions, like the blue force fields and the mist gates, are enough to satisfy the Metroidvania requirements. Dracula’s castle needs to retain its status as a sprawling spectacle, and having too many impediments would have been too close to the oppressiveness of Metroid for comfort. Castlevania is already copying enough from Metroid, so the game should be allowed some leeway to develop its own rules before Alucard starts donning a space helmet and using a futuristic hand cannon like a disturbing case of Single White Female.

Dracula’s castle is so formidable in Symphony of the Night that the Belmont mainstays can’t even overcome it. Its new unorthodox design triumphs over the capabilities of the iconic vampire-slaying clan, like a caveman being thwarted by using a utensil after getting too comfortable eating with his hands for his entire life. The Castlevania series has put many different Belmonts in the spotlight as the primary vampire killer, but Symphony of the Night marks the first game where a Belmont is not the protagonist. Extraordinary circumstances call for even more extraordinary capabilities, and Alucard is certainly someone who possesses these. Yes, the same Alucard from Castlevania III is at the helm of ending Dracula’s reign of terror in Symphony of the Night. Konami (literally) resurrected a character that shared a sidekick billing with two other characters behind Trevor Belmont in a Castlevania title released generations before Symphony of the Night, so what was the impetus for dusting him off and giving the prestigious role of the first non-Belmont protagonist? Firstly, Alucard’s extraordinary capabilities I was alluding to beforehand shan’t be forgotten by anyone who has played Castlevania III. Alucard’s ability to transform into a bat and fly over enemies' heads made him the wildcard of Trevor’s posse. The same ability translates to his lead role in Symphony of the Night, unlocking new, unseen potential. On top of hovering past the reaches of the enemies, the primary use for Alucard’s transformation abilities is now traversing the out-of-reach corridors of the castle. Alucard can also transform into a wolf and a cloud of ephemeral mist, which are used occasionally for traversal, but they do not match the soaring potential of the bat. However, all these innate abilities are stripped away from Alucard by the Grim Reaper at the beginning, so they all serve as the game’s “power-ups” that allow Alucard to access more of the castle upon their retrieval, as seen in Metroid. The Belmonts seem too base and barbaric to conquer what Dracula’s castle has become, so the androgynous, supernatural Alucard is a great surrogate to deal with the castle’s newfound complexities.

Alucard has more of a stake in the Castlevania story than Sypha and Grant ever did and arguably more than any of the Belmonts. Alucard is none other than Dracula’s son, an impure half-breed of human and vampire. His name is even an anagram for Dracula, spelling out what Dracula’s name would look like seeing it in a mirror like “Redrum” from The Shining. Narrative depth was not something feasible in the days of the NES, so Alucard’s connections with Dracula were difficult to delve into. However, Symphony of the Night elucidates Alucard’s special placement in the Castlevania world. Everyone ponders the big question: if Alucard is Dracula’s son, why would he go to great lengths to defy him? To his father’s chagrin, Alucard is a “human apologist.” Dracula’s contempt for mankind stems from the horrific murder of his human wife, Lisa, Alucard’s mother, who was burned at the stake by the local villagers and their church for her blasphemous bedding of the Count. This event understandably scarred Alucard, with a nightmare sequence of his mother’s death triggering at some point in the game that represents his trauma. However, Lisa’s parting words were to forgive the humans instead of begrudging them, which Alucard respects while his father does not. To grant his mother’s dying wishes, Alucard must stop his tyrannical father from exterminating the human race. Alucard’s backstory and the conflicting circumstances of his existence make him a much more interesting protagonist for a Castlevania game. His journey feels more personal than the obligatory trek the Belmonts undertake every century.

Alucard’s greater capabilities for traversal make him a more suitable candidate as a Castlevania representative for a Metroidvania game, but how does he fare in combat? Alas, Death has also stripped Alucard’s mighty offensive prowess and must recover it with his vampiric powers. Alucard regains his strength via the system found in an RPG game, leveling up after a certain number of points from defeating enemies. The RPG genre, specifically the Action-RPG, and the Metroidvania genre are not mutually exclusive, but their accumulative properties through progression often overlap. As Alucard slays the creatures of the night that lurk around Dracula’s castle, he is granted a certain amount of experience points like in a typical RPG. The player cannot determine which attributes to improve upon leveling up, as each level milestone automatically increases Alucard’s offense and defense. This lack of a choice may indicate a shallow RPG leveling system, but Symphony of the Night compensates for its simplicity in this regard. Alucard’s build is customizable through the wide assortment of weapons and armor. Besides strength and defense, the player should also consider other stats like intelligence and luck before equipping them. Their magic and critical properties are arguably just as vital as the former two, and the beauty of a build is that the player has a choice. Plenty of objectively stronger weapons and more durable armor will naturally be found as the player progresses in deep crevices of the castle and from the remains of enemies. Alucard can also purchase weapons and armor from a figure called the “Master Librarian,” but his stubbornness to stay put among the massive shelves of books makes visiting him a bit inconvenient. The Action-RPG elements and purchasable goods may seem like the game’s most unique contribution to the Metroidvania genre. This peculiar deviation gives Symphony of the Night’s gameplay its own identity. Upon further consideration, does Samus not increase her firepower with the upgrades she finds and trade in her armor for one with better defense? Are these upgrades not equatable to leveling up in a point system? Perhaps RPG elements were always present in Super Metroid, and Symphony of the Night’s more overt system exposed Super Metroid’s subtleties.

The two attributes that are not increased with leveling up are Alucard’s maximum health, and heart ammunition for the sub-weapons Alucard inherited from the Belmonts. Upgrades for both can be found on the map, but they will be a consistent drop when the player defeats the bosses. There is at least one boss per area in Dracula’s castle, and they might be my favorite crop of bosses in a Castlevania title so far. Some encounters have Alucard fighting familiar foes like a doppelganger fight, while the Werewolf and Minotaur fights exemplify the game’s pension for dual bosses. Other bosses like Scylla and Legion fill the entire arena with enormous mass. The latter of the two is a particular highlight as it’s an orgy of naked bodies coalesced as a giant sphere, and I can thank Sony for their lenience on graphic content as opposed to Nintendo here once again. On top of their creative quality, something is satisfying about how these bosses are encountered. Scrounging around the castle and stumbling upon the bosses unexpectedly is always a stimulating surprise and gives me the satisfaction that I’ve explored the area thoroughly. All the while, defeating them still feels like the penultimate challenge of a level similar to the previous games.

However, the challenges presented in Symphony of the Night do not match any of the ones from any of the previous games. The Metroidvania genre's tendencies for nonlinearity and accumulative progression have naturally made Symphony of the Night much easier than what Castlevania fans were used to, and many of them find fault with this. Although I never found myself in a state of anguish-induced prayer trying to overcome any section of Symphony of the Night compared to previous games, it is not a walk in the park. The open-ended level design with few barriers allows the player to visit most areas of the castle, and they’ll soon discover that some areas offer steeper challenges than others. Symphony of the Night has what I like to call “suggested difficulty.” The game never overtly directs a player toward a certain trajectory. Still, if the enemies deplete Alucard’s health bar drastically with one hit, the game expects the player to have the common sense to go somewhere else and return later with more experience. The course of areas suggested subtly by the game always provides a suitable difficulty curve, even in the beginning when Alucard has nothing but his bare hands and a butter knife as his means of offense. All the while, experienced players can still choose to endure the harder areas. Most of the same enemies from the classic games return (along with so many others that the Master Librarian catalogs a bestiary), and the player has to recontextualize them. The bottomless pits that would be interspersed in the architecture of Dracula’s castle have been omitted completely. Hence, enemies like Medusa Heads and Flea Men are now as irritating as flies. However, every enemy is still a liability in the endurance test to find the next save state to regenerate their health, and the rooms of respite are parsimoniously dispersed. Upon learning the layout of an area, it’s refreshing to plow through enemies with experience and save progress at their leisure. Symphony of the Night is as challenging as the player wants it to be, a testament to its liberally-designed world.

At times, Symphony of the Night’s free-flowing philosophy neglects the player. That one specific exception is with the game’s true ending. The player is intended to collect three specific items and equip them while fighting the final boss, but the game is true to its laissez-faire approach and does not give the player any indication of what and where these items are. Without them, the game leaves an unsatisfactory narrative of defeating Richter under Alucard’s suspicions of him trying to resurrect Dracula. If the player has these three items, Alucard sees an orb floating over Richter, who turns out to be Shaft, Dracula’s right-hand man from Rondo of Blood. All this time, he’s been using Richter as a puppet and controlling his mind, and attacking him instead of Richter exposes his mirage. The specific directions are far too obtuse to discover naturally, so much so that players back during this game’s release only heard about it from word of mouth.

Also, not following the game’s specific instructions will lock the player out of the second half of the game: the notorious inverted castle. If the player defeats Shaft’s orb, Alucard will find himself in an exact copy of Dracula’s castle but flipped on the Y-axis. The player must traverse the castle again, and it’s not as tedious as it sounds. The inverted castle may not offer any new areas to explore, but it does offer a new slew of enemies that prove to be more formidable than anything in the upright castle. However, the game fails to recognize that Alucard can now bypass everything with his bat form. It’s the last powerup the player acquires in the normal castle for a reason. The amount of health-draining enemies mixed with the army of weaker enemies often clutter a room, and using the bat mitigates the hassle entirely. At this point, the player is also probably overleveled, eliminating the incentive to gain more experience defeating enemies. The player will also most likely be at an adequate level to deal with the inverted castle’s bosses, who all possess body parts of Dracula, like in Simon’s Quest. If players follow the game’s suggested path, they will fight the bosses from the first Castlevania. A fun tribute for sure, but the novel charm of it is ineffective due to Rondo of Blood already doing something like this. Even the vengeful fight against Death for Alucard’s full power is underwhelming. Optional bosses like Beelzebub and Galamoth are perhaps TOO challenging to even entertain the thought of fighting. Overall, the inverted castle does not match the same level of quality as the normal one. The wondrous sense of exploration is not present due to its uncanny design, and all the challenges it provides can be passed over like a helicopter in a foot race. Still, it makes up a gigantic portion of the game that shouldn’t be missed in terms of getting your money’s worth, and the final fight against Dracula after completing it sees the Count in his most beastly form yet. No one will want to leave the game without a solid resolution. However, I’m still skeptical whether or not the inverted castle was a necessary addition to extend the game when the first half was substantial enough.

The Castlevania series butchered the foundation of the series with experimentation long ago with Simon’s Quest on the NES, which made the series apprehensive about deviating from the series formula for the longest time. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night proves that all the series needed was more time to take a better source of inspiration, specifically Nintendo’s iconic sci-fi series Metroid. Metroid’s influence has given Castlevania an immaculate breadth, a potential that couldn’t have been possible by sticking to the tropes of regular 2D platformers. Its ample world design and sparse boundaries make the game feel sumptuous, fitting for its lavish presentation. Before Symphony of the Night, most people probably would never have associated it with Metroid in the slightest, but Konami’s effort to mimic Metroid’s foundation has formulated a marriage of sorts with many offspring between the two. Their relationship blossomed because Castlevania understood Metroid better than Metroid understood itself. Castlevania is the breadwinner of the two, for Symphony of the Night made Metroid more accessible. All the while, Symphony of the Night still upholds an incredible sense of exploration, progression, and world design that most Metroidvania games decades onward still struggle to attain. Metroid might have supplied the mold, but Castlevania sculpted that marble into the Michelangelo's David of the genre. It’s no wonder why developers then started to take notice.

...

Before any of you smartasses comment anything starting with the word “actually;” I’m aware that Koji Igarashi has gone on record stating that A Link to the Past was his primary influence in crafting Symphony of the Night’s world design. I can see many parallels between A Link to the Past and Symphony of the Night, yet it still reminds me more of Super Metroid. The public didn’t coin the genre “Zeldavania” for a reason.

Splatterhouse Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 10/2/2022)

[Image from igdb.com]

Splatterhouse

Developer: Namco

Publisher: Namco

Genre(s): Horror, Beat em' Up

Platforms: Arcade, TurboGrafx-16

Release Date: November 1, 1988

Tis’ the spooky season yet again, and what better time than this to discuss the 1988 arcade game Splatterhouse? Any other time of the year would feel inappropriate, for Splatterhouse is arguably the penultimate old-school horror game. One might get the impression from Castlevania that games of the pixelated eras were restrictive on the horror factor they could provide, mirroring the long history of how the Hays Code affected the content of the film industry. Splatterhouse is certainly proof that this is not the case, and that Castlevania is intentionally quaint. Splatterhouse may seem tame nowadays compared to the nihilistic, psychological horrors in the third-dimension we’ve experienced since its release, but Splatterhouse was the gnarliest horror video game of its time. If Castlevania was a tribute to classic horror tropes and characters, then Splatterhouse served as a contemporary cavalcade of 1980s horror.

The 1980s was synonymous with the slasher genre. Gritty violence and gore that stemmed from the grindhouse exploitation films of the 1970s put asses in theater seats and spawned several multi-million dollar franchises. This era of horror may have set a precedent that turned the genre into a cheap joke that no one took seriously for many subsequent decades, but it was an incredibly prosperous time for the genre nonetheless. Splatterhouse may be another 2D side scroller/beat em’ up of its era, but the style is enveloped in the most visceral of 1980s horror gore. The slasher genre might have dominated the 1980’s horror landscape, but Splatterhouse’s grotesque aesthetic reminds me more of Hellraiser, a popular horror film of the decade more akin to body horror and or cosmic, supernatural horror. The walls of each area are splattered (no pun intended) with the pulpy mess of the entrails of unknown carcasses. The monsters are all otherworldly abominations straight from Clive Barker’s warped sketchbook. The player can decapitate these unholy beasts with a meat cleaver, causing their bodies to gush and ooze blood and gore like a sieve. It’s a freaky splendor of the senses just like Hellraiser. With these elements, Splatterhouse does an effective job at providing the thrills and chills of a 1980’s horror movie in an interactive medium.

As a 2D side scroller that combines elements of beat em’ ups and platforming, Splatterhouse is rudimentary to a fault. Each level in Splatterhouse is a straightaway hall whether it be within the walls of the estate or near the grounds. The game offers alternate routes to diversify the narrow trajectory but they are so few and far between. Besides, most of the sections the player will uncover by falling through holes will usually bring them to a sewer level where they will slosh through knee-high water. It feels like more of a punishment for error rather than a lark. Enemies tend to be sluggish and all of them run at the player with the urgency of a Romero zombie, and I don’t believe this is an intentional nod to the filmmaker. Despite this, Splatterhouse still holds the mantle of excruciating difficulty that arcade games are known for, albeit for all the wrong reasons. Some enemies like the monster fetuses and the slime monsters in the underground sections spawn on top of the player, unfairly damaging them. Health in Splatterhouse is precious and must be conserved because the game only offers five points of health represented by beating veiny hearts. There are no health items to restore a heart until the end of a level where the game will only replenish two of them from the player’s current amount. Why not start a level with full health? Not doing so seems like an unfair penalty that will reduce the playtime of Splatterhouse more drastically, even more so than most arcade games.

Truly, the most flawed aspect of Splatterhouse is its protagonist, Rick. Like many heroes in horror media, he’s a victim of circumstance as his girlfriend gets captured by the creatures in the horrific mansion they take refuge in during a storm. Rick is knocked unconscious but gets resurrected by a supernatural mask that transforms him into something of Jason Vorhees mashed with the steroid-abuse build of The Incredible Hulk. He’s a fairly sympathetic protagonist, even though he looks like an intimidating boss from every other piece of horror media. However, his brutish demeanor is the crux of Splatterhouse’s issues. Rick is the most awkward playable character in any 2D sidescroller due to his monstrous physique. The man has the subtlety of a gorilla, and he has made me realize that sidescroller protagonists need a sense of nimbleness to be competent. Rick’s standard punching and kicking feel stilted, and whoever decided Splatterhouse needed to have platforming sections pulled a cruel, sick joke on the player. I only felt comfortable when Rick was holding any weapons because of the extended range, but they seemed to only appear in the earlier levels. Only someone of Rick’s stature could be fitting for a twisted game like Splatterhouse, but the developers should’ve worked on refining his character.

Is Splatterhouse only impressive on a superficial level? Sadly, yes. Splatterhouse most likely was a cutting-edge game that set a new bar for parent concern for violent content in video games, but that sense of spectacle wears thin when players start to realize how shallow Splatterhouse is as a game. It’s almost indicative of the substance of many of the horror movies that inspired it. The best way to experience Splatterhouse is to witness it from a glance from someone playing it in the arcades, for the console version on the Turbo-Grafx compromises a lot of the gore due to censorship. Also, it helps to travel back to the late 80's for the full effect, but that’s impossible. Splatterhouse is but a footnote in horror games and nothing else.

Chibi-Robo! Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 9/30/2022)

[Image from igdb.com]

Chibi-Robo!

Developer: skip Ltd.

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): Action-Adventure

Platforms: GCN

Release Date: June 23, 2005

R.I.P. Nintendo Power. Nintendo’s once glorious publication served as prime reading material to supplement time spent away from playing Nintendo’s systems. The monthly magazine was a haven of everything Nintendo: including reviews, lists, fan art, and features on upcoming games as detailed and thorough as Playboy’s “playmate of the month.” Nintendo Power also included walkthrough/cheat code sections to aid players through the esoteric and brutally challenging games of Nintendo’s pixelated era. I have fond memories of the publication from when I was a kid, even though the so-called “golden age” of the magazine spoken of in that one AVGN episode tributing it predates my existence by a few years. I subscribed to it between the years 2003-2008, losing interest in Nintendo Power once they were bought out by a corporate conglomerate that sucked the personality out of the publication. I shed a bittersweet tear when Nintendo Power closed its doors in late 2012, and apparently, the brand name continues in a podcast format. Why am I sharing a sentimental moment from my youth here? Because Chibi-Robo! is the select game I discovered through a feature in the March 2006 issue of Nintendo Power, and it probably would’ve gone unnoticed without it. It would’ve been a shame because Chibi-Robo is one of the Gamecube’s finest hidden gems.

Chibi-Robo’s presence on the front cover of issue 201 of Nintendo Power was fairly minimal. The titular hero and his assistant Telly Vision were present on the cover, but at unflattering, unimportant angles on a stark black background. The prime focus of the cover was the words “Gonzo Gaming!” an ambiguous buzz term fitting for something from a 1950’s billboard advertisement. While Chibi-Robo was offered a prestigious role as the front cover feature of Nintendo’s prime publication, the cover’s lack of pizzazz might have subtly suggested that the game was nothing extraordinary and there were no other games to display that month. However, the insignificantly-sized blurb at the bottom of the obnoxious title showed that those at Nintendo Power knew the extent of Chibi-Robo’s genius. It stated that Chibi-Robo was Nintendo’s “domestic hero” and that he was “leading a revolution in radical game design.” Although that “revolution” never quite came to fruition, Chibi-Robo proved incredibly innovative. If games like Earthbound domesticated the JRPG genre, then the domesticity that Nintendo Power was alluding to with Chibi-Robo was the shifting of tropes from the 3D platformer and the action-adventure genres into something more habitual.

Chibi, the pocket-sized robot of the title’s namesake, is introduced to the Sanderson family during the daughter Jenny’s eighth birthday celebration. Her father has pulled a Homer Simpson and has purchased Chibi as a birthday present, knowing full well that he is the one interested in microscopic mechanical marvels instead of his daughter. Chibi and his even dinkier, fluttering manager Telly Vision introduce themselves cordially and display Chibi’s potential by picking up a flower in a vase and handing it over to Jenny. Despite both the outstanding display of Chibi’s capabilities and the kind gesture, Mrs. Sanderson is still appalled at her husband’s selfishness, and reasonably so. It also doesn’t help matters that Chibi-Robo was an expensive purchase, digging the hole of debt the Sandersons are in a bit deeper. What was expected to be Chibi’s warm, hearty welcome to the Sanderson household is instead met with an embittered Mrs. Sanderson giving her husband the cold shoulder for the duration of the game. Because of the unceremonious circumstances, Chibi now has to prove his worth to the Sandersons, both economically and personally.

So how does Chibi make himself useful to the Sandersons? By making them happy, of course. Chibi-Robo’s main objective is to accumulate “happy points,” a currency earned by performing various good-natured household tasks. Common tasks that net Chibi-Robo happy points usually involve cleaning, scrubbing stains with an old toothbrush, and disposing of garbage such as wrappers, soda cans, etc. The Sandersons and their dog Tao are evidently taking advantage of Chibi’s services because the house gets mucked up with the same amount of filth and detritus each night. As irritating as the family’s audacity to compromise your hard work is, at least it offers a consistent opportunity to rake in a small number of happy points. Completing more roundabout tasks for progressing the main story and side quests will earn Chibi a more inordinate amount of happy points, ranging from single digits like cleaning to profound happiness in the hundreds. Funny enough, the player cannot perform acts that will deduct happy points, which could potentially be a hilarious litany of mischievous deeds. A flexible morality compass would’ve been too complex for a game like Chibi-Robo, although it would’ve been interesting, to say the least. At the end of the day, Chibi-Robo retreats back into his crockpot-shaped house in the living room, and Telly Vision adds up his cumulative total. Chibi’s goal in collecting happy points is to eventually become the number 1 Chibi model in the world, which is cataloged in a Chibi leaderboard based on the total number of happy points they’ve earned. Considering that Chibi ranks up in the hundreds of thousands above several others with a measly happy point total at the start, many other Chibis are total duds, so the competition isn’t stiff. Chibi also earns “moolah,” a more well-defined financial currency that is given alongside happy points and can also be found around the house. Other people’s happiness is all fine and dandy, but Chibi ostensibly isn’t the Sanderson family’s indentured servant and needs to be compensated for his hard work. Do the Chibis have their own union? With the combination of the two abstract and the concrete currencies, Chibi-Robo offers more than enough incentive to do menial labor.

“Why would anyone want to play a game where all you do is clean?” was a frequent decry from some gaming journalism outlets (not Nintendo Power) on Chibi-Robo. This rhetorical question is a gross oversimplification from someone who saw this game on a superficial level. Still, I’d be lying if I said cleaning wasn’t a large aspect of Chibi-Robo. What was Nintendo’s fascination with centering games around cleaning in the Gamecube era (Animal Crossing, Super Mario Sunshine, etc.)? The dissenting critics weren’t entirely wrong about the content, but they failed to recognize the scope of the objective. The entirety of Chibi-Robo’s map takes place in the confines of the Sanderson home, and it’s not as restrictive or bottled as it may seem. Keep in mind that Chibi is roughly the size of someone’s hand, so the Sanderson’s home seems like a sprawling playground in his perspective. Common household objects like lamps, chairs, and stairs are herculean hikes for someone of Chibi’s stature. While Chibi’s main prerogative is to clean, the lengths he has to traverse are grand enough to match Link’s climb up Death Mountain. The heights in the rooms that a normal human could reach with their arms are daunting for little Chibi, making them daunting for the player by proxy. Using the Chibi ladder tool as assistance in ascending the staircase in the foyer to access the upstairs portion of the house felt as gratifying as getting to the destination point of any other adventurous trek. The Sanderson’s home is not mapped out extraordinarily. It’s a two-bedroom home with typical rooms like the living room, kitchen, basement, and a fenced-in backyard. The Japanese developers evidently were inspired by the Brady Bunch when mapping out the home because the Sandersons do not have a bathroom. Did they figure there wouldn’t be enough happy points or moolah in the world for Chibi to clean up the Sanderson's bathroom, considering the amount of mess they leave everywhere else? Yeesh. However, the scope of Chibi-Robo’s world makes the mundane setting of a two-story home into something extraordinary.

Chibi must make sure not to exert himself too much while making people happy, or else he’ll literally collapse. The caveat to adventuring around the Sanderson’s home is that the player must always keep cautious of Chibi’s battery in the bottom right corner of the screen. The consistent movement will cause a steady depletion, and standing motionless will still drain the battery, albeit at a snail’s pace. Fall damage is the most harrowing threat to Chibi’s life force. Depending on how high Chibi has dropped, the battery will plummet into multiples of a hundred. Because of this, it’s wise to always use Chibi’s copter mod when scaling high places, so he floats down gracefully, only using a small fraction of energy. If Chibi’s battery reaches zero, he’ll pass out, and Telly will escort him back to the Chibi house, losing a bit of moolah. Fortunately, multiple outlets are situated in every room (except the backyard) of the Sanderson household for Chibi to completely replenish his energy and for the player to save the game. Some may see Chibi’s finite battery as an irritating burden, but I think it helps elevate the scope of the adventure. The adventure wouldn't feel as imposing if Chibi could climb around without concerns. Plus, the reward for ascending the Chibi ranks increases Chibi’s battery power by a few multiples of ten, which scales wonderfully with the expanded range of the house Chibi can explore. Chibi’s battery life keeps players on their toes and makes them consider their actions more carefully.

Chibi needs to recharge periodically because the Sandersons have him working around the clock. The days in Chibi-Robo are divided in half by two day and night cycles. These cycles start at a mere five minutes, but the brief period is fitting for Chibi’s minuscule battery power at the beginning of the game. Soon enough, the player can extend the cycles to ten or fifteen minutes. I recommend keeping the clock on fifteen because, after a certain point, the number of quests will stack up, keeping you busier than anticipated. The player should also give themselves enough time in either cycle because both offer different opportunities. During the day, the Sanderson family (including the dog, Tao) are up and about, and the house feels zestful and bright. Dusk engulfs the residence at night with a moody shade of blue, creating a calm atmosphere. The night is also when Chibi-Robo’s Toy Story influence is more apparent as the Sanderson’s toys spring to life as they galavant about the house. Some toys will act lively during the day, but only in sections where none of the family is around. The lack of human presence at night allows each toy to command its domain. I love games whose progression feels free-flowing and gives the illusion of total freedom. After unlocking the entire house in Chibi-Robo, I can fill his schedule with whatever I please. The fifteen minutes may not seem enough time, but the limit makes the player act on their feet. While I cherish the free-form progression, I wish it was a little more organized. A Bombers Notebook from Majora’s Mask would’ve helped track the available days for each character because their interactivity is not as simple as thinking that humans are only available during the day and the toys at night. For example, The Great Peekoe, the money-grubbing scam peddler, is all over the map. He normally resides in the basement but will sometimes be in the kitchen and in the backyard. I would never interact with him except that he possesses an item needed for another character’s quest, and showing interest in buying this item to him on the backyard swing is only there at a very specific time. The soldiers can’t train at night in the foyer sometimes, and Sunshine is often with Jenny at all times of the day. A Persona-like schedule in a menu would’ve cleared things up, but perhaps that would’ve been too complex. Still, it’s disheartening taking precious time to meet a character and find that they aren’t available.

Even if the premise and content of Chibi-Robo don’t suit your fancy, one can’t deny the beaming charm the game has. Chibi is an adorable protagonist, and the Sanderson household's microcosmic world is just as endearing, albeit a bit gaudy. Chibi-Robo is a game whose aesthetic exudes a cutesy, childish vibrancy. The look of the characters, environments and the overall atmosphere is pleasing, like the general innocence of something catered towards children. Something unexpected from Chibi-Robo, but nevertheless just as vital that supports this peppy tone, is that the game is quite sonorous. Musical cues resonate from seemingly every pore of Chibi-Robo. For example, many of Chibi’s gadgets, like the toothbrush, will create a pleasant acoustic guitar track whose length coincides with the rate of continual motion Chibi makes while cleaning. It’s just too bad that it depletes so much of his energy. The broken piano jingle that plays when Chibi attempts to dig at a solid patch of ground is so alluring that it attracts a strange creature called Mr. Prongs to the living room. Each one of Chibi’s footsteps is heard like Spongebob’s, and picking up his chord and carrying it over his head will speed up Chibi’s movement, and the background track will move faster as well. Many characters have their own theme that plays when Chibi interacts with them, and the stylistic gibberish they all speak in sounds more natural than in any other game that uses this method of dialogue. I’ve never seen a game use music like Chibi-Robo does, and it’s used brilliantly.

Another element of Chibi-Robo that elevates its charisma is its extensive cast of characters. Chibi’s design is wonderful, but he is yet another silent avatar protagonist in gaming. Despite his kind nature and darling wardrobe of costumes (the pajamas being the most precious), his uninvolved “yes” or “no” signs of communication make him like a non-threatening version of Hector Salamanca. Telly usually does most of the talking for Chibi, and he serves as a straight-man spectator to all the oddities in the house with a jittery, timid disposition. The game's lifeblood is the supporting characters, namely the family and the toys. With the family, my impression is that the developers watched a smattering of 20th-century sitcoms to craft their interpretation of the typical American nuclear family rings louder. Mr. Sanderson is a chubby, oafish slob like many sitcom dads who lazily sits around the house due to being unemployed. He’s a stilted manchild who performs a Super Saiyan stance when he gets excited. His wife is the spitting image of the naggy, frustrated housewife who looks like a 1960s pin-up model. At first, she has contempt for Chibi because of how expensive his purchase was but grows to like Chibi as he works around the house. They even have tea time together as Mrs. Sanderson subtly flirts with Chibi, to everyone's discomfort. How many happy points Chibi would get if she used him as a vibrator is uncertain, but I bet he’d be off the charts in the Chibi rankings. Their daughter Jenny’s quirk is that she wears a frog hat and only talks in ribbits with some words mixed in. She is mostly seen drawing in the living room. Tao, the family dog, is the most hostile towards Chibi and is mostly the subject of one particular side quest.

The family unit is all interesting in its own right, but the real stars of Chibi-Robo are the toys. Some toys will mark their territory and never leave their spots, while others travel around the bounds of the house in several different places. Drake Redcrest, an intergalactic space warrior who totally isn’t Buzz Lightyear, stomps around the living room on his patrol for justice with the same mix of righteousness and lack of self-awareness as the Pixar character who serves as his clear inspiration. Sophie is lurking around the close vicinity of Drake, who moonlights as a hopeless romantic for Drake after being Tao’s chew toy all day. The hard-boiled Sarge and his army of egglings use the spacious foyer for combat training while the gruff, wooden pirate Plankbeard traipses around the basement drinking rum. The master bedroom is the dance stage for Funky Phil, who is Disco Stu as a toy flower with kinetic arms. As Phil dances the night away, his not-so-secret admirer: the rootin'-tootin', frog-chewin’ Dinah, watches him from across the room in awe. Jenny’s room is the realm of the maudlin Mort, who lays in his coffin under the bed, and the beautiful Princess Pitts, who sits high in her oblique castle. Sunshine, my favorite of the toys, mainly resides here and is why I was interested in buying Chibi-Robo. His Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-like nature brought upon by his debilitating addiction to nectar makes him violent and unpredictable like a fuzzy bowtie-wearing Danny Bonaduce.

The main trajectory of the story will only include some of these toys on occasion, so I implore anyone who hasn’t played Chibi-Robo to invest time and effort in each character’s side quest. Not only will completing them earn Chibi a whopping amount of happy points, but the side quests are some of the best content the game offers. Once Chibi impresses the egg soldiers by bypassing their line of fire on his way to the basement, they enlist him on a mission to kill the family dog to recover a soldier who was abducted by Tao. Plankbeard is confined to the dank grounds of the basement, and Chibi must recover his lost ship along with a fresh pirate crew so he can plunder for booty once more. Sophie drops the poetic love letters meant for her crush, Drake Redcrest, but coyly uses Chibi as a medium for communication between them even though she’s only a few feet from him at all times. Dinah goes above and beyond for Funky Phil as his biggest fan, aiding his offspring in desperate times. The standout sidequest is helping Mort with his seemingly futile affections for the beautiful Princess Pitts The climatic point of this sidequest when Sunshine is having an “episode” and Mort “defeats” him after socking Drake Redcreast in the mouth is my favorite moment in the entire game. As for the Sunshine sidequest, the resolution to it is so outrageous that I dare not spoil it. For a bunch of inanimate objects, these toys are more lively than most NPCs in gaming. Interacting with these characters made me feel invested in their troubles, unexpectedly empathizing with them. Most of the tasks Chibi must do run the gamut of fetch quests, but the superb writing of the characters and their stories makes up for the tedium.

The sidequests expose a surprising level of depth Chibi-Robo has that one would not expect. While Chibi-Robo’s presentation and characters are zany, the game is not afraid to shine a light on some weighty themes beneath its light-heartedness. Chibi-Robo is the story of a dysfunctional family at their breaking point, and Chibi has been unfairly tasked with mending the foundation before it cracks. In a pivotal moment, Chibi finks on Mr. Sanderson by showing his wife a receipt for yet another expensive toy. In frustration, she locks herself in her bedroom away from her family and decides that this instance is her boiling point. She writes the family a letter expressing her desire for a divorce, which lights a fire under Mr. Sanderson’s ass as he starts to pitch in with housework. Mr. Sanderson obviously didn’t consider signing his prenuptial. The character we empathize with most is Jenny, for the aura of dysfunction caused by her bickering parents has had a damning psychological effect on her. She is seen in the foyer on some nights, either crying or looking distraught. Her regression with the frog head is most likely due to severe psychological problems, inability to cope with what is happening around her, and retreating to a realm of escapism. She only expresses her true feelings about the situation by communicating through Sunshine or when Chibi is wearing the frog suit.

The other aspect of the main story also delves into the aura of gloominess surrounding the Sanderson house. During Chibi’s first visit to the basement, he finds a conspicuous giant robot lying motionless in the corner. By plugging his cord into the robot’s outlet, he inherits the memories of the robot’s history with the Sandersons and the toys. With some exposition from Plankbeard, we learn that this metallic hunk-of-junk is Giga Robo, a hulking prototype of Chibi that used to be a companion of the Sandersons. He also brought the toys to life as a wish he was granted by aliens he saved from a fatal collision to Earth. Eventually, the Sanderson’s unpaid bills became too staggering, and they had to stop financially supporting Giga Robo’s battery, leaving him as a husk to rot in their basement. Chibi’s main goal in the story is to revive Giga Robo, using moolah to charge his battery and find his missing leg. Chibi focuses on replenishing Giga Robo’s life force because he’s emblematic of the Sanderson’s happiness. They were happy when he was present in their lives, and their financial problems were relatively stable. He’s a symbol of the candy-coated past full of opportunity and prosperity, juxtaposed with the malaise of the present that Chibi is only familiar with.

In real life, Giga Robo’s absence would be a lesson in the absolute nature of grief and the process of coping with loss. However, Chibi-Robo is a video game, and extraordinary things happen in them, but not without complications. The extent of Chibi’s formidable mission has him using the alien’s time-traveling technology to retrieve the code to a case where Giga Robo’s leg is locked up. Up until now, the Spydorz enemies that have been sporadically showing up to antagonize Chibi Robo have been a piddly excuse for Chibi to use his blaster. As insignificant as they may seem, these little bastards enact a full-scale invasion of the house by using the case as a Trojan Horse. In this distressing event, the entire family bands together with Chibi and Mr. Sanderson, proving he’s not some dumb schmuck. He reveals that he wasn’t laid off from his job of programming the spydorz but quit out of passion when his company decided to make them turn on the Chibis. With a new schematic, Mr. Sanderson does some impressive metalwork to improve Chibi’s blaster to defeat the spydorz and their queen. The queen boss fight feels rather awkward, but the resolution where the family unit is restored is greatly satisfying. This climax, along with Giga Robo walking up the stairs, to everyone’s surprise, ends the story of Chibi-Robo beautifully. Chibi ascends to the apex of the rankings and becomes “Super Chibi Robo,” and all it took was repairing a tattered marriage by bending time and space. The aliens grant Chibi and Giga Robo an infinite battery that never declines, which the player can use indefinitely. However, I believe this sweet conclusion should’ve been the last moment of the game. For some reason, some of the side quests can’t be finished until Giga Robo is revived, which sullies the impact of the ending. That, and using Chibi with reckless abandon now that he’s immortal compromises too much on what made the gameplay invigorating and makes it mundane.

Chibi-Robo is more than meets the eye. The kooky nature of the game’s presentation was enough to sucker me into buying it after its splendor was displayed in an issue of Nintendo Power when I was a kid, and its offbeat nature fulfilled my initial expectations. However, one can’t truly know the extent of Chibi-Robo unless they probe deeper into its hidden level of substance that lies beneath its eccentricities. A game lambasted for simulating menial labor was merely a surface-level critique that failed to capture how it was a pertinent mechanic in reinventing the tropes in the 3D platformer and action-adventure genres. The characters that coexist with one another in this domicile are outlandish, yet they are more fleshed-out and sympathetic than most human characters in gaming. Some critics even claim that the dour themes presented in Chibi-Robo are too jarring for something so cute and inviting. Still, I argue that it’s impressive that the developers combined the quirkiness and the sombreness of the game without it feeling asymmetrical. Chibi-Robo is a unique, impressive experience, and I thank Nintendo Power for introducing me to this criminally underrated game.