not really the biggest fan of certain aspects of the VN, but was a decent read felt kinda too long but most of the routes were decent. soundtrack was alright too.
Honestly brilliant. Brought this game for funny mecha and romance action and I got one hell of an amazing story, with incredibly likeable characters (and biggest asshole in the history).
I was hooked from the start and I just couldn't stop. 70 hours later and finally done. It was 100% worth my time, I do not regret a moment.
I was hooked from the start and I just couldn't stop. 70 hours later and finally done. It was 100% worth my time, I do not regret a moment.
Just shy of 140 hours of well researched technological singularity pondering, fun characters and weirdo romance, glued together in a punchy 2D action game with a great make-a-combo system.
Despite appearances it's not a mech game in the super robot sense (quite frankly the mech design is terrible). But Baldr's Sky is a story of everything beyond human. It explores almost all ideas of trans-humanism in some form. The mecha are called simulacrum, they are... virtual other bodies used for fighting. Not what Baudrillard had in mind. But his ideas are reflected in the work and thrown around constantly. Just as you think they're just riffing on The Matrix another completely different thought exercise pops up and proves Baldr's Sky is good enough to sit alongside it's contemporaries in fiction. It is also completely a product of the mid-2000s post dotcom bubble sci-fi. As a fan of that era, I love it. But it's dated as heck.
An extremely niche, extremely long, genre-piece in an already niche genre of gaming. I am so glad this exists. It really shouldn't.
PS I never want to read about Schrödinger's cat again. 3rd or 4th visual novel in a row now.
Despite appearances it's not a mech game in the super robot sense (quite frankly the mech design is terrible). But Baldr's Sky is a story of everything beyond human. It explores almost all ideas of trans-humanism in some form. The mecha are called simulacrum, they are... virtual other bodies used for fighting. Not what Baudrillard had in mind. But his ideas are reflected in the work and thrown around constantly. Just as you think they're just riffing on The Matrix another completely different thought exercise pops up and proves Baldr's Sky is good enough to sit alongside it's contemporaries in fiction. It is also completely a product of the mid-2000s post dotcom bubble sci-fi. As a fan of that era, I love it. But it's dated as heck.
An extremely niche, extremely long, genre-piece in an already niche genre of gaming. I am so glad this exists. It really shouldn't.
PS I never want to read about Schrödinger's cat again. 3rd or 4th visual novel in a row now.
Disgust show
I've never seen so many unlocks of such variety in a game. It's a shame that so few developers take the diegetic approach to unlocking basic HUD elements like enemy healthbars and combo meters. Understandable from a practical perspective, but a shame.
As for the rest of this game... and it is a game not a VN... I went in thinking it would be like 90% reading given the 70-90 hour runtime, but oh no... it's like a clean 50/50 split, if not weighted towards gameplay depending on difficulty....
This game is a roller coaster. Except not the kind with any slow sections, but the kind that oscillates between a clean andrenaline rush and whipashing corkscrew nonsense. I can't ever remember being bored during the entire journey, but boy did it get me with shock value at times.
As a sci-fi I actually really enjoyed this narrative. It was a blast from the past of turn-of-the-millenia and early internet, both in that era's hopes and fears. There are concepts of technology, society, and existential quandries used here that I've seen very rarely in the last 20 years (not that I'm some super well read individual) and it uses them in interesting ways, even feeling downright novel at times. It tapered off a bit near the end for me, but I wager at the time the ending would have felt more fresh. Unfortunately some of the final additions are the concepts most overused today.
As a drama this story is nuts. And quite explicit. Like damn. I've never felt so emotionally detached from a group of characters while simultaneously genuinely enjoying and caring about them. It's like the feeling after you've come to terms with something awful happening to someone you care about—or them doing something awful in some cases. You just gotta accept reality, move on, and not become emotionally entrenched.
It does even justify most of those feelings thematically, as well. I'd say the central one here is "crushing nostalgia" as the characters find themselves so far removed from their days of innocence that even just thinking about the good days is a source of pain, even as they find few other motivations in life outside of vague desires to reclaim what once was. It's pretty interesting, and surprisingly not as diluted of an experience as something this long tends to be.
That said—and as I seem to say frequently—it's definitely a game from the early 00's VN scene.
Now, that aside, the biggest surprise here is the combat—the only gameplay but very prominent in its role. It's odd, but it's also oddly good. It's an isometric 2D brawler with 3D movement that plays like a classic arcade mecha game, only perhaps a bit more like an anime fighter than some of its peers.
Given the graphical limitations, you won't be speccing out your mech with specific parts, but you do get full customization of your attack mappings in a system reminiscent of the Tales of series. Each of the four attack buttons can have four attacks mapped to it, each triggering contextually based on range, movement, and a no-repeats limit on moves in one combo string.
The attacks available are varied and their roles in combat seem well defined. The mechanics of combat are nuanced and you can learn to take advantage of them as you work out your tactics to get really devastating effects. There are options you can spam defensively as well early on, but with learning you can take minutes long fights down to 10-15 seconds.
Or, if you're not into that kind of effort in your gaming, you can turn on Very Easy mode and blow everything up with rockets. Up to you. As far as I can tell there's only one or two unlockables that require a higher difficulty and I'm pretty sure they just unlock more combat stuff.
Enemy variety is also kind of absurd for how long the game is. Though I guess that can in part be attributed to it being two games combined into one at this point, but even then, there are probably around 40-60 unique enemies with animated sprites and attack patterns, then a good number of varients on top of that. They're rather creatively designed too, to the point of them sometimes being downright aggravating in that way things can be when creative types are doing what they feel like.
I never found one that didn't have some weakness you could exploit, though. I did get kind of sick of playing on hard by hour 50, though. It's a bit sadistic at times (and I got a new job, so my days of no-lifing games are on hold again).
This is all to say that if you're looking for some classic mech action gameplay and/or a sci-fi that is everything Virtues Last Reward wished it was, then this might be worth checking out.
Just be warned that wholesome feelings are few and far between in this tale.
As for the rest of this game... and it is a game not a VN... I went in thinking it would be like 90% reading given the 70-90 hour runtime, but oh no... it's like a clean 50/50 split, if not weighted towards gameplay depending on difficulty....
This game is a roller coaster. Except not the kind with any slow sections, but the kind that oscillates between a clean andrenaline rush and whipashing corkscrew nonsense. I can't ever remember being bored during the entire journey, but boy did it get me with shock value at times.
As a sci-fi I actually really enjoyed this narrative. It was a blast from the past of turn-of-the-millenia and early internet, both in that era's hopes and fears. There are concepts of technology, society, and existential quandries used here that I've seen very rarely in the last 20 years (not that I'm some super well read individual) and it uses them in interesting ways, even feeling downright novel at times. It tapered off a bit near the end for me, but I wager at the time the ending would have felt more fresh. Unfortunately some of the final additions are the concepts most overused today.
As a drama this story is nuts. And quite explicit. Like damn. I've never felt so emotionally detached from a group of characters while simultaneously genuinely enjoying and caring about them. It's like the feeling after you've come to terms with something awful happening to someone you care about—or them doing something awful in some cases. You just gotta accept reality, move on, and not become emotionally entrenched.
It does even justify most of those feelings thematically, as well. I'd say the central one here is "crushing nostalgia" as the characters find themselves so far removed from their days of innocence that even just thinking about the good days is a source of pain, even as they find few other motivations in life outside of vague desires to reclaim what once was. It's pretty interesting, and surprisingly not as diluted of an experience as something this long tends to be.
That said—and as I seem to say frequently—it's definitely a game from the early 00's VN scene.
Now, that aside, the biggest surprise here is the combat—the only gameplay but very prominent in its role. It's odd, but it's also oddly good. It's an isometric 2D brawler with 3D movement that plays like a classic arcade mecha game, only perhaps a bit more like an anime fighter than some of its peers.
Given the graphical limitations, you won't be speccing out your mech with specific parts, but you do get full customization of your attack mappings in a system reminiscent of the Tales of series. Each of the four attack buttons can have four attacks mapped to it, each triggering contextually based on range, movement, and a no-repeats limit on moves in one combo string.
The attacks available are varied and their roles in combat seem well defined. The mechanics of combat are nuanced and you can learn to take advantage of them as you work out your tactics to get really devastating effects. There are options you can spam defensively as well early on, but with learning you can take minutes long fights down to 10-15 seconds.
Or, if you're not into that kind of effort in your gaming, you can turn on Very Easy mode and blow everything up with rockets. Up to you. As far as I can tell there's only one or two unlockables that require a higher difficulty and I'm pretty sure they just unlock more combat stuff.
Enemy variety is also kind of absurd for how long the game is. Though I guess that can in part be attributed to it being two games combined into one at this point, but even then, there are probably around 40-60 unique enemies with animated sprites and attack patterns, then a good number of varients on top of that. They're rather creatively designed too, to the point of them sometimes being downright aggravating in that way things can be when creative types are doing what they feel like.
I never found one that didn't have some weakness you could exploit, though. I did get kind of sick of playing on hard by hour 50, though. It's a bit sadistic at times (and I got a new job, so my days of no-lifing games are on hold again).
This is all to say that if you're looking for some classic mech action gameplay and/or a sci-fi that is everything Virtues Last Reward wished it was, then this might be worth checking out.
Just be warned that wholesome feelings are few and far between in this tale.