The ending really got me in a place that is hard to describe, like not a sad feeling, maybe more like a comforting feeling? I dunno but I haven’t had many games get me in this way so that’s something big. It uses the vaporwave aesthetic to keep the gameplay and setting interesting, while using it to tell an interesting story. Where Griptape Backbone is about vaporwave itself and the emotional feel of it, Broken Reality is about the ideas and statements surrounding vaporwave. It’s more nostalgic than it is depressing, while at the same time bringing up the consumerism and social media aspects of the movement.
the game tells you almost nothing about the story, and instead shows it or gives some weird imagery for you to interpret on your own. And, honestly, that’s really refreshing? Like, that is one of the reasons I like FRACT OSC and Antichamber so much, they don’t go out of their way to tell a deep or complex story. And like, the story is there, you just have to dig a little and decode the imagery to get to it. Like, you get movies every now and again, like Total Recall or Inception, that leave big questions unanswered, and you almost never get that with games. I really feel like games can provide a more interesting way to do that also, like you can mess with players more using the mechanics to suggest things to the player. I’ll discuss the dealio under the read-more link to avoid spoilers.
SO, what I love about the ending is how vague it is. Like, you litterally travel through the server’s own version of Hell and wind up in what appears to be reality. Howerver, the dialogue boxes and some of the sound effects are the same as they were in the server, suggesting you aren’t in reality, rather some weird recreation of it buried deep within the server. The fact that the reality of the ending being in question for a game titled Broken Reality is just really cool and clever.Â
--Edit: I failed to mention this before but the reason I am spelling her name a onii-chan instead of onee-chan is that I believe that onii-chan is the creator herself, and she made and AI to help her maintain the server once you left, and when she made it she modeled it after both herself and one of her favorite fiction characters. so when I say onii-chan, I mean the person and not the AI.--
I suppose I will give my best take one the ending though, since I’m not sure how many people will talk about it, so here goes. It seems to me that onii-chan and you are possibly ex-lovers or at least used to be friends, and before you are like “ooh boy you can’t just assume the character helping you out and who is called onii-chan is your lover” just hear me out for a sec. So I believe you and her created the server originally, and after a bit you two had a falling out (hence the story robodoggo tells you about). So now after being gone for a while you decide to check in and see how things are going with her and the server (doggo said that one of the creators hasn’t been seen in a while, so maybe that was you and now you are back). You basically spend the game trying to find her, just to figure out that she is either stuck or just sitting deep within the server and you work your way to get to her. when you find her she is in a recreation of what is probably her apartment (or you actually go to her apartment somehow?). However, when you find her she is sitting at a desk and refuses to talk to you (she constantly looks away from you regardless of what you do). (I think you were lovers because her looking away from you suggests she knows you, and there is a picture on one of her walls of 2 people holding hands on a beach and the man’s head is burned out of it. plus the end song would fit this also.) You go to try and repair the server from it’s corruptions (from her absence?) and you end up having to shut the server down. The weird part that I don’t fully get is that when you shut it down onii-chan stands up and looks at you, but she looks a lot different, like maybe she turned into what she looks like outside of the server. and a few seconds after the shut-down you get a super trippy scene where its some kind of fancy static, and the credits roll.Â
So, I know there isn’t a whole lot supporting it, but it makes sense. however, the only story I know for sure is that you wind up shutting down the server when you try to fix it. However, you may actually be going into the apartment in reality since in the title screen, the option to leave the game is a picture of the doorway to her apartment. So maybe that is suggesting you are going into the server to fix it, but giving up and just going to her computer physically. But, I have no idea for certain.
overall, a really good game and I loved almost every second of it.
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On this day, Jan. 20th, 2019, I beat Ocarina of time for the first time.
It is really interesting to play it now, since it is such a product of its time. There are so many tutorial things and so much repetition simply because 3D games like that were still relatively new and a 3D zelda was very new. It is also weird using only one analog stick for everything, since nowadays almost all games use 2 stick controls.
Overall, I liked it. However, I wouldn’t say it is a favorite. How’s that for a hot take? But really, I prefer Breath of the Wild’s non-linear open world over OoT’s linear progression. I would love for there to be a solid mix of both the game styles in a single Zelda game though. Like, take the open world sandbox nature of BotW and make a bunch of sprawling dungeons with interesting mechanics and themes like in OoT. Yeah, it would be tricky to do in a way that feels good to play, but I believe it is possible. Hopefully Nintendo will figure that out, or at the very least a talented indie dev will.
In terms of themes, the game uses The Hero’s Journey as a pretty solid framework for its story, and it doesn’t really have any strong running themes other than the whole coming of age deal. This isn’t inherently bad, since a lot of the purpose of this game was to figure out what a 3D Zelda would be like. It does have a more melancholy feel to it though, and the progression from OoT to Majora’s mask is very clear and natural.
I also like the Biggoron’s sword quest because the sword itself is very powerful, but to get it you have to go through a whole hullabaloo of delivering things to people. it is an interesting way of balancing it out more than just, like, limited use or some other mechanic.
Anyway, I’m probably going to play Majora’s Mask at some point since themes about depression and death are right up my alley, and it seems like it’s just OoT but with more focus on being thematically interesting.
