Review of BALDR SKY Dive2 "RECORDARE"
| Subject | BALDR SKY Dive2 "RECORDARE" |
| By | Helpfulness: 10 Vote: 10alonesome on 2020-09-11 |
| Review | This was a title I knew very little about before "diving" in, and was my first entry into the expansive Baldr franchise. All I had previously to go on was some brief synopses and cover arts, so even the genre and presentation of this work ended up really impressed me. I certainly didn't expect that Baldr Sky would turn out to be this sprawling, expansive cyberpunk urban thriller. Works in this genre absolutely live and die by how compelling their setting is and how much integrity their worldbuilding has to offer, and Baldr Sky completely nails this aspect. The world and setting of Baldr Sky is tremendously well-realized and offers its own fantastically novel take on many of the core themes and conceits of cyberpunk (transhumanism, social marginalization, political unrest, militarism, religiosity, distinctions between the virtual and real, etc.) Baldr Sky's world is compelling in additional and unique ways that're only made possible through the VN medium, both thematically and audiovisually. There is a very refreshing darkness and "grittiness" to the setting very reminiscent of classic cyberpunk texts that would be decidedly out of place in an accessible, all-ages format, supported by impressively imaginative backgrounds and slick VFX used to represent actions such as "diving" and transitioning between layers of the internet, all of which help to flesh out the setting and bring it to life. All of this is further abetted by the sheer length of the narrative, something else which is only afforded by the VN medium and permits such a phenomenal setting the depth and breadth of treatment that it deserves. The quality and integrity of its worldbuilding certainly is enough to earn it top billing among the canon of all SF works, particularly within the domain of otaku subculture, but beyond that, it is also the ultimate SF visual novel, delivering on a supremely ambitious narrative that would only be possible within this specific medium. The other core conceit of this work is the abundant and well-integrated interludes of gameplay that it offers. As a game, it's supremely well designed, even though this fast-paced, mechanically intensive beat-em-up is far outside the domain of what I normally play. My first playthrough was on just the default, normal difficulty and there were still definitely a few battles that challenged me and had me retrying several times. The game supports a wide range of playstyles, the play-patterns are very fluid and satisfying to execute, and the hardest difficulty actually presents a very considerable challenge while managing never to feel unfair. On top of that, this is absolutely a game that has a pretty remarkable amount of depth and ton of opportunities for skill expression. The various mobs and bosses all have different movesets and attacks that force you to play differently around them, and the overheat mechanic is an especially brilliant piece of design that creates really nice counterplay dynamics - there is nothing more satisfying than baiting out and dodging a flurry of attacks before plunging back in to counterattack with a punishing combo, and this highly technical and skillful playstyle is finely balanced to be the most effective, which strongly deters blindly attack-moving forward all the time or spamming ranged weapons from afar. All things considered, even evaluating it as a pure gameplay title, it holds up remarkably well despite being released over a decade ago and doesn't lose to anything within its genre space. On top of this however, the gameplay integrates exceptionally well with the narrative, enough to considerably enhance both elements. Though the worldbuilding and storytelling does need to take a fair amount of liberties to justify the gameplay, it's still handled quite elegantly and doesn't really go far enough to harm the integrity of the setting. Perhaps it might have been possible to tell a slightly more coherent story purely with text and prose describing battles replacing the gameplay segments, but I feel like such improvements would be marginal at best, and a lot of the work's strength would be lost as a result. As an example, one especially cool device of the gameplay/story hybrid unique to Baldr Sky is how it subverts the otherwise entirely passive experience of reading text. Particularly with Baldr's style of "lean forward", adrenaline-pumping, fast-paced action gameplay (as compared to the leisurely, disconnected, time-insensitive RPG gameplay that most "gameplay VNs" feature), the emotional state and mental frame of mind that you engage the story with ends up being considerably shaped by the gameplay. The prospect of having agency through gameplay turns the reader from a passive observer into an active participant in the story, and I think that it greatly enhances the emotional appeal of the fiction. There are some early scenes that are explicitly time-sensitive centering around the threat of sexual violence which show off this conceit, albeit in a rather ham-fisted sort of way, but this device is sharpened and polished to full effect particularly in Dive2. Whether it's just a friendly sparring match that your overcompetitiveness would still hate to see you lose, a hopeless last stand as you desperate wait for reinforcements, or the ultimate showdown to reclaim the distant blue sky of your memories, the gameplay lets you inhabit the emotions and mindset that the narrative is trying to create far more effectively than even the best of prose could ever hope to accomplish. In terms of the actual narrative and storytelling, as a whole, I think it's just a supremely expansive and well-realized story. While I can think of plenty of individual works that execute certain specific elements like insightful thematic exploration or nuanced characterization considerably better, the narrative of Baldr Sky is really just a complete package with few notable shortcomings. On top of being an extremely competent SF title that nails the core appeal of the genre, the heroines are likeable, the slice-of-life and character dynamics are charming, and the comedy is sparingly but effectively used. All of the "moege" elements if excised and put by themselves would independently make for a very above-average game. While the heroines are all decently interesting and likeable in their own right, I especially appreciated how the cast is not just a conventional like-minded "group of friends" or classmates. Rather, there is a complex and tangled web of loyalties and secrets and intrigue among the cast members. It leads to the routes playing out extremely differently as you might end up as part of radically different factions and opposing alliances depending on your choices, which allow for a much more thorough and rich exploration of the world. Though the device of an amnesiac protagonist is a fairly tired trope, I do think Baldr Sky makes pretty good use of it as a narrative device, allowing the audience to slowly learn more about Kou's past in a natural and diegetic fashion. This motif of "recordare” is very appropriate for the story that the game wants to tell - despite science fiction and cyberpunk being very foregrounded elements, this is not a work that is exclusively dedicated to the speculative and exploratory and philosophical aspect of hard science fiction. Instead, I read Baldr Sky as being much more of a "sekai-kei" and "pure love story" text, and I feel like these themes are what form the real narrative and thematic core of the story: of slowly reclaiming your memories for a grander purpose - a love upon which the entire fate of the world depends. I thought that it delivered on everything here about as well as one could expect. I especially love how the events of the true route play out extremely differently, enough to inform you that things are going to be very different and genuinely excite you with possibilities even from the first chapter alone. The ultimate conflict and resolution was not as grand as I had thought it might be, but I still ultimately like what the story does with its pure love story and resolution. If there's one thing I could be slightly critical of, it would be the lack of thematic depth behind the work. This is clearly a work whose predominant artistic goal is telling an accessible and engaging story, and it certainly succeeds at this goal, but somewhat at the expense of leaving the reader without anything especially profound or insightful to take away. As previously mentioned, it introduces a ton of classic SF ideas and concepts, but I don't feel like it really comments on or says anything super insightful or meaningful about these SF conceits like transhumanism, the virtual versus the real, militarism and political economy, the philosophical nature of qualia, etc. Something like the Ark Project raises a lot of interesting questions with respect to ontology and metaphysics and moral philosophy, but I don't feel like the work goes out of its way to engage deeply with any of them. I was also extremely hopeful that many of the explicitly Baudrillardian references such as "simulacrum/simulacra" would have some payoff, but all of these allusions seem to be extremely surface-level at best, and the work doesn't really engage with any of his ideas. I'd also have liked to see the motif of "the blue sky" used a bit more in the actual text, as it's such a poignant and evocative idea that could have delivered some excerpts of great prose, but you see it mentioned more in the chibi sprite dialogue than the actual game. Overall, Baldr Sky does indeed tell a very expansive and compelling story, but I don't feel like the reader is left with too much to think about or reflect on or take away after the fact. In terms of a few other minor aspects - I certainly have some real grievances about the repetition of text and inability to skip previously read text in different routes/Reminiscence, but I didn't find that it hurt my enjoyment of the work too much, as I generally liked rereading the flashback scenes. I'm also an especially big fan of how much sheer attention to detail that went into really inconsequential aspects - for example, the enormous variety of customization in the form of backgrounds, VFX, etc. that are available through the plugins, or the unique lines of dialogue that the chibi mascots have when clicked on or viewing different characters on the relationship chart. It's just super obvious how much care and loving attention to detail went into creating this work. I also have nothing but praise for the craft elements - I'd have loved a remastered, higher-resolution game, but it still visually holds up superbly well for being over a decade old. Otherwise, the graphics, CGs, BGMs, etc. are all very excellent. The TL is also great - a very workmanlike TL of a text that doesn't have much in the way of difficult prose or dialogue to deal with, but it does a truly phenomenal job of localizing the SF jargon and gameplay mechanics, and otherwise very competently does its job in an elegant, unobtrusive way. I especially liked the decision to make the game more accessible by doing things like removing honorifics and being fairly liberal with how it translates dialogue, I have high hopes that the gameplay-focused nature of the title means that it will be a good future entry-point for those new to the VN medium. All in all, I've certainly played some "better" standalone video games, and read a few "better" standalone visual novels. However, it is no exaggeration to say that Baldr Sky is the single best integration and synthesis of "ludonarrative" that I've encountered. The marriage between these two disparate elements in Baldr Sky is achieved more successfully, in a way that elevates both the story and the gameplay, than I've ever seen and likely will ever see. Generally, my top VNs are ones that might well be considerably flawed, but do one specific thing so superlatively well that nothing else even matters. Baldr Sky is a bit different - it's simply a complete package that does't do any specific thing exceptionally well or perfectly, but comes extremely damn close in all respects. Whenever I think about the game in retrospect, it makes me a bit sad that something so ambitious would likely never get created nowadays, but at the same time, I'm so glad I was able to play it at all. It'd be simply unfair to give it anything other than my highest commendation. Originally posted on Reddit WAYR. |
| 10 points |