This review contains spoilers
Not the first time—and at this rate, probably not the last time—I have been Charlie Brown football’d by a cannibalism-themed yaoibait RPG Maker game. What it presents is two twinks handcuffed together as they navigate through a decimated medicated facility, haunted by the cannibalism-inducing “Zeno” virus. The expectations seem quite obvious from there, but the end result was… certainly not worth the length of time I subconsciously hyped myself up for it while it stewed in my backlog.
The most appreciative that can be said about Zeno is that it was a fairly cozy experience from start to end, ironic considering the vibes and subject matter. Inherently, the whole RPG Maker template is a type of comfort food to me, a structure that helps set up a kinda similar set of vibes that just hits right with me. This game certainly doesn’t fuck that part up, with the creepy atmosphere of the medical facility, great character portraits, and other fun garnishing like the menu screen updating over time. What’s more, it’s puzzles are actually on the better side compared to its peers. There’s nothing particularly special here, but it strikes a good balance between making its interactions intuitive but still interesting enough to make you think a bit. The entire playable span of the game is a pretty decent time.
Obviously though, being the type of game it is, most of the runtime is entrenched in its dialogue and cutscenes, where things really start to break down. For being a game so inherently centered around the eponymous virus, with how its contracted and treated and reactivated in the body, everything around it is treated with an unfortunate amount of nebulousness. The first warning sign was a file saying that it’s called Zeno because it’s a “foreign entity”, which… yeah? That’s what a virus is? Is that the best you could come up with???
A lot of the game stews itself in discussion of trauma and mental illness in relation to the virus, with it being spread as an induced trauma and being “cured” by either cannibalizing another infected person or having the initial trauma erased from one’s memories. I’m certainly not well informed on either topic, but it certainly feels like the game isn’t either with how loosely it treats everything. The story keeps waffling back and forth about the effectiveness of erasing memories and the lasting impact of the trauma, but oh maybe erasing more memories lets you permanently get rid of Zeno? Even by the end of the game, I didn’t feel like I really understood the mechanics of the virus, which might have partially been intentional, but made it really hard to care about the twists throughout the story regarding it.
Not helping any of the above it’s the game’s really dire translation. If not for the presence of very intentional slang in the dialogue, I’d very easily believe it was all machine translated with its constant stilted grammar. Several points in the story were made far harder to parse, particularly when the two main characters realize their identities were swapped for [reasons], when the use of pronouns and perspective are often very fucky. There was never a dire enough point where the text was straight-up incomprehensible, but it certainly made reading less than pleasurable.
The game wraps itself up, reveals the mystery of the relationship between the two characters, and they escape to live together under government surveillance. It’s a cute enough ending, if a bit on the unsatisfying side, with most things kinda-sorta wrapped up. Then you gain access to the real final third of the game, where one the two main characters is entirely shunted to the side for an extended therapy session between the main two’s stalker throughout the game and his little sister who was willingly cannibalized by one of the main characters. While it’s certainly setup throughout the first parts of the game, it’s a jarring shift in focus that renders the complicated relationship built up between the main two largely irrelevant.
It was really something else to suddenly be dropped with the line “I wish brother would eat me while I’m still me” (they’re not blood related, but she calls the guy who eats her that anyways for. some reason) and experiencing the rest of the game with that as the status quo. It certainly keeps up the rest of the game’s usage of cannibalism as a metaphor for love, just with a young girl’s one-sided crush on a guy who’s way older than her. And, perhaps I’m reading too far into the game, but it felt like it’s treated with more legitimacy than the metal illness-driven love one of the protagonists has for the other. Which is weird! I really don’t understand why the game took such a hard turn to this angle!
It’s not even about the game subverting the expectations I came in about it. Whatever, I’m willing to accept when my initial interpretation of a game was wrong and roll with it. The game can very much not be gay while still being a good time. But the whole relation with the little sister felt rather trite and repetitive, an uninteresting finale to a game where I just do not understand the thought process behind led to it being what it is.
The most appreciative that can be said about Zeno is that it was a fairly cozy experience from start to end, ironic considering the vibes and subject matter. Inherently, the whole RPG Maker template is a type of comfort food to me, a structure that helps set up a kinda similar set of vibes that just hits right with me. This game certainly doesn’t fuck that part up, with the creepy atmosphere of the medical facility, great character portraits, and other fun garnishing like the menu screen updating over time. What’s more, it’s puzzles are actually on the better side compared to its peers. There’s nothing particularly special here, but it strikes a good balance between making its interactions intuitive but still interesting enough to make you think a bit. The entire playable span of the game is a pretty decent time.
Obviously though, being the type of game it is, most of the runtime is entrenched in its dialogue and cutscenes, where things really start to break down. For being a game so inherently centered around the eponymous virus, with how its contracted and treated and reactivated in the body, everything around it is treated with an unfortunate amount of nebulousness. The first warning sign was a file saying that it’s called Zeno because it’s a “foreign entity”, which… yeah? That’s what a virus is? Is that the best you could come up with???
A lot of the game stews itself in discussion of trauma and mental illness in relation to the virus, with it being spread as an induced trauma and being “cured” by either cannibalizing another infected person or having the initial trauma erased from one’s memories. I’m certainly not well informed on either topic, but it certainly feels like the game isn’t either with how loosely it treats everything. The story keeps waffling back and forth about the effectiveness of erasing memories and the lasting impact of the trauma, but oh maybe erasing more memories lets you permanently get rid of Zeno? Even by the end of the game, I didn’t feel like I really understood the mechanics of the virus, which might have partially been intentional, but made it really hard to care about the twists throughout the story regarding it.
Not helping any of the above it’s the game’s really dire translation. If not for the presence of very intentional slang in the dialogue, I’d very easily believe it was all machine translated with its constant stilted grammar. Several points in the story were made far harder to parse, particularly when the two main characters realize their identities were swapped for [reasons], when the use of pronouns and perspective are often very fucky. There was never a dire enough point where the text was straight-up incomprehensible, but it certainly made reading less than pleasurable.
The game wraps itself up, reveals the mystery of the relationship between the two characters, and they escape to live together under government surveillance. It’s a cute enough ending, if a bit on the unsatisfying side, with most things kinda-sorta wrapped up. Then you gain access to the real final third of the game, where one the two main characters is entirely shunted to the side for an extended therapy session between the main two’s stalker throughout the game and his little sister who was willingly cannibalized by one of the main characters. While it’s certainly setup throughout the first parts of the game, it’s a jarring shift in focus that renders the complicated relationship built up between the main two largely irrelevant.
It was really something else to suddenly be dropped with the line “I wish brother would eat me while I’m still me” (they’re not blood related, but she calls the guy who eats her that anyways for. some reason) and experiencing the rest of the game with that as the status quo. It certainly keeps up the rest of the game’s usage of cannibalism as a metaphor for love, just with a young girl’s one-sided crush on a guy who’s way older than her. And, perhaps I’m reading too far into the game, but it felt like it’s treated with more legitimacy than the metal illness-driven love one of the protagonists has for the other. Which is weird! I really don’t understand why the game took such a hard turn to this angle!
It’s not even about the game subverting the expectations I came in about it. Whatever, I’m willing to accept when my initial interpretation of a game was wrong and roll with it. The game can very much not be gay while still being a good time. But the whole relation with the little sister felt rather trite and repetitive, an uninteresting finale to a game where I just do not understand the thought process behind led to it being what it is.
yaoi y canibalismo como metafora para el amor
simplesmente muito foda eu amo os homossexuais
Cannibalism, illness, memories; loss and recovery.
A nice game to play if you're into that kind of stuff, the story is clear and presents the worldbuilding through reading various items like notes scattered through the map, a typical RPGMaker game. However, you may need to look into the spin-off for more information regarding the characters and their backgrounds, but enough information is already presented in this game.
There is a total of 13 endings in this game. The gameplay isn't supposed to be that long, I just played it blind without a walkthrough for most of my playtime and ended up using a guide in the end for the endings I didn't manage to get, you'll probably require about 2-4 hours if you're using a guide properly. A typical adventure puzzle game to progress, it isn't that hard.
Please remember to save often if you want to play the game, some parts may require an amount of time to get through when searching for an ending branch. The English translation for the game is a minus point, it should be reworked on some parts, a bug also occurs once or twice but wouldn't affect your experience too much and you can progress from it.
A nice game to play if you're into that kind of stuff, the story is clear and presents the worldbuilding through reading various items like notes scattered through the map, a typical RPGMaker game. However, you may need to look into the spin-off for more information regarding the characters and their backgrounds, but enough information is already presented in this game.
There is a total of 13 endings in this game. The gameplay isn't supposed to be that long, I just played it blind without a walkthrough for most of my playtime and ended up using a guide in the end for the endings I didn't manage to get, you'll probably require about 2-4 hours if you're using a guide properly. A typical adventure puzzle game to progress, it isn't that hard.
Please remember to save often if you want to play the game, some parts may require an amount of time to get through when searching for an ending branch. The English translation for the game is a minus point, it should be reworked on some parts, a bug also occurs once or twice but wouldn't affect your experience too much and you can progress from it.