Fui conquistar suzuran e ganhei depressão.

Não tem muito o que falar da historia sem estragar a experiência. São jovens confusos no seus últimos dias de colegial buscando objetivos e novas experiências, e com isso muitas das vezes se expressando com a força.

Na estrutura, ele é um jogo é um mundo aberto sem mapa ou qualquer objetivo, o jogador é livre para fazer o que bem entender diariamente controlando Ringo. Seja estudar, trabalhar, malhar, roubar, entrar em confusão e etc.

Na parte técnica faltou um polimento, mas nada que vá estragar o jogo. O combate é bem simples, um botão para soco outro para chute, novos golpes são aprendidos praticando alguma arte marcial.

Não sei muito bem como colocar em palavras o que estou sentindo sobre ele no momento mas com certeza um dos meus favoritos, cada hora nele valeu muito a pena, é minha ambientação e tema favorito nos mangás e aqui é feito com maestria. É muito bom vivenciar o drama de cada personagem.

Los amigos de Ringo Ishikawa juega al despiste constantemente con las expectativas. Tras su apariencia de beatem up clásico se esconde un relato íntimo y existencialista sobre un grupo de adolescentes que no sabe qué hacer con su vida una vez que lleguen a ser adultos.

Y lo hace con una filosofía de diseño de mínimos y con mecánicas que nunca se molesta en presentar que nos deja descubrir, experimentar y combinar por nuestra cuenta. ¡Y que satisfactorio es cuando eso pasa!

Es el anti videojuego en el mejor sentido de la expresión. Uno en el que puedes estar minutos pulsando un botón para que tu protagonista esté leyendo un libro, mientras pasan las horas del día y que, tras terminar, tras haber perdido tu valioso tiempo, la recompensa sea… ninguna. Y parece una decisión de diseño horrible pero no lo es, porque Ringo Ishikawa es una de esas experiencias que no pueden ser definidas por palabras, si no que tienen que ser vivida. Porque a veces está bien perder 6 horas de tu vida en jugar a un simple videojuego.

As a guy who loves Crows and Kyou Kara Ore Wa, and who hates Tokyo Revengers, I can safely say this game was good.

While I kind of wanted a little more to it (like perhaps the ability to join the basketball team or something, idk), I understand that the scope of a game like this has to be relatively small. It's a game where everything is inevitable.

The only thing I would probably change is the music that plays when you enter the school, and the fight music interrupting that beautiful guitar on the west-side of town.

The game starts with a battle inside a train. In the aftermath, the beaten thugs stay on the floor until the train stops. Once off, another fight begins. After that, you proceed to the next screen and another fight begins. This one has no end, just a fade to black and a title drop. No catharsis on any punch or on any victory. After that, another message. A year has gone by. The same gang feud is still going on and getting worse.

After this skip, the first thing you see is Ringo's professor telling him that the last days of high school are coming up, and it’s time to decide where to head on with your life. In here, the already decontextualized beat’em up setting gains a new dimension when noticing that the violence is not just non-cathartic, but a background. Some gangs fight each other, some others want to fight you, you can run away from any of them and if you get beat up there is no fail state, just another action in the world and waking at home after some rest.

This may be a disheartening view of the world just because, but when examining your own actions, it becomes evident that there is no other way, or not easily so. You have no financial support and will starve for most of the time, at the very least on the first days. Your only income source is to pick money from beaten thugs, by your own hand or not, and it’s easy to assume that most of the teenagers around are in a very similar place.

The means for covering basic necessities is just a small part, since Ringo’s life is explored in all its aspects, since he wakes until he goes to sleep. Here it is interesting to see his approach to hobbies or interests like literature, studies, or even exercise, be it through fights or through training with some masters. In any case, the result of taking interest in those topics will be some numbers going up. Simple abstraction or not, intentional or not, despite whether Ringo is interested in what he is doing or not, what remains is a cold number, an objective. This could be compared with how modern Persona games free time actions help you build stats making every decision a strategic decision, at least partially, but here the answer is more vague, or directly non-existent, there is no benefit to what to do or not to do because there are no good or bad outcomes. The usual short length on most events, just a few lines of dialogue, help to convey both the fugacity and sudden impact of the small moments and their relative insignificance on the bigger picture when searching for a change.

The game takes influence from Yakuza and Shenmue, and while it’s easy to see where it comes from, there is a major difference. There is no immediate catharsis on the infinite time for side activities like in Yakuza and no real objective to struggle for like in Shenmue. If anything, it looks more like what San Andreas would be if there were no missions, just going around the neighborhood as the days go by. But the days will eventually end. To me, the most similar game to Ringo Ishikawa is Boku no Natsuyasumi.

Of course, with a very different tone, there is a similar sense in getting up every day and going around from one screen to another looking for things to do in the city. Also, at least in my case, a certain routine started to appear, making each day like a small poetry exercise. I liked to go to some places at some time, to repeat some activities, to create my own daily plan in both games. In both, the intention is to get the better of every day. In Boku no Natsuyasumi, the conclusion was that even the days when nothing happened were as good as any other. In Ringo Ishikawa, even when something happens, the sense is that of still being lost, and then marching another day trying to find something.

Here is a lot to praise about how the map and the scenarios are constructed. Even though the tall infinite buildings can be seen in the background of many screens, the feeling when running around is that the place is too small and that there is a kind of life that cannot be escaped whatever you do.

If Kunio-kun and the eighties manga school gangster aesthetic suggest some sense of freedom through the sheer strength of youth, Ringo Ishikawa uses the template to illustrate the opposite, the end of the fantasy and the realization of how hard it is for a teenager to escape from where they are, or if it is even possible.

I went to school every day because I knew my friends were there.