6/10
A question haunts me: where does Niko come from? What is this other world they speak of all the time? The more I think of it the sadder the game may become: are they something else and not just a bunch of pre-coded pixels? Are they from a sort of noumenal / fictional world of pure, unrepresented (or rather: unsimuoated) ideas? Or is their getaway a false one; their house just a projected one; their actual body a non-existent one? Is Niko a mere function of the game, regardless of how much the game wants us to believe that they actually exist somewhere?
OneShot doesn't deal with this but the very fact that it favours such thoughts is brilliant.
As a matter of fact, this simpler version of Undertale deals with much of its same questions (how much we care about gameworlds and characters? What would happen if a 'world machine' gets sentient? How would fictional characters perceive their own world if they acknowledge it's just a simulation?). Its structure is similar as well (you have to replay the game once it's over to discover a whole new path and reach the 'True ending' in which the actual intentions of the game machine are revealed). What is missing here is complexity, a bunch of themes, brilliant gameplay, and mixing everything in an intertwined whole. Where Undertale is a constant surprise and makes hard to distinguish between gameplay, narratives, and meta-game, OneShot tends to become quite redundant, less well-written and moving, and flatter. Alas, the puzzle game mechanic kinda undersold it.
And yet I cannot but think about that question once more. In the end, just like Undertale (and Metal Gear Solid 2?), OneShot is all about remembering. The most fascinating implication of the game is therefore suggesting how not only players will remember what happened - also fictional characters will. But is Niko fictional at all? In Final Fantasy X, the fictional world would miss players once they quit. Here the fictional world does not: Niko does. They're the very (experiential, conceptual) core of the game. And yet they're a paradox, an enigma. Which is great.
A question haunts me: where does Niko come from? What is this other world they speak of all the time? The more I think of it the sadder the game may become: are they something else and not just a bunch of pre-coded pixels? Are they from a sort of noumenal / fictional world of pure, unrepresented (or rather: unsimuoated) ideas? Or is their getaway a false one; their house just a projected one; their actual body a non-existent one? Is Niko a mere function of the game, regardless of how much the game wants us to believe that they actually exist somewhere?
OneShot doesn't deal with this but the very fact that it favours such thoughts is brilliant.
As a matter of fact, this simpler version of Undertale deals with much of its same questions (how much we care about gameworlds and characters? What would happen if a 'world machine' gets sentient? How would fictional characters perceive their own world if they acknowledge it's just a simulation?). Its structure is similar as well (you have to replay the game once it's over to discover a whole new path and reach the 'True ending' in which the actual intentions of the game machine are revealed). What is missing here is complexity, a bunch of themes, brilliant gameplay, and mixing everything in an intertwined whole. Where Undertale is a constant surprise and makes hard to distinguish between gameplay, narratives, and meta-game, OneShot tends to become quite redundant, less well-written and moving, and flatter. Alas, the puzzle game mechanic kinda undersold it.
And yet I cannot but think about that question once more. In the end, just like Undertale (and Metal Gear Solid 2?), OneShot is all about remembering. The most fascinating implication of the game is therefore suggesting how not only players will remember what happened - also fictional characters will. But is Niko fictional at all? In Final Fantasy X, the fictional world would miss players once they quit. Here the fictional world does not: Niko does. They're the very (experiential, conceptual) core of the game. And yet they're a paradox, an enigma. Which is great.