Spoilers for some story in Ghostwire: Tokyo
Butch:
OK, back to vidya gamez.
Played a bunch. Cleansed gates. Did a couple side quests. Saved souls. Did a couple side quests for a dude who was a second hand seller (we gnomes gotta stick together) and thought the lady who was talking on how diamonds get corrupted by greed was really interesting because all that tied into our discussion on THEMES a long time ago and that's what I want to talk on. Not the quest. The "long time ago" thing.
This game had narrative THEMES, didn't it? We had some nice delves into greed, into ambition, etc. Then something happened (this chapter started? Or before that?) and, of late, it's been saving souls, doing "find my grandpa's axe" quests (cleanse my grandpa's axe?) and doing blah things to move the story. Hell, my stated quest objective right now is "cleanse the revealed Torii gates." That's it. Cleanse gates.
Sure, we've had good bloggage on art design and mood and sound and gameplay. Game's been good at all that. We certainly had some bananas to talk about. But THEMES? Stuff the game is SAYING? We haven't had much to chew on, if anything. It's odd, because we had stuff to chew on in past chapters.
Where'd it go?
Feminina:
I think it was easy to see some themes when we were first figuring out what was going on. "Oh look, it's all these petty worries and negative emotions and behaviors related to them that's either holding people back from the afterlife, or causing the manifestation of murderous entities!"
(On 'the manifestation of murderous entities,' this was a long time ago, but remember the side quest in the hospital, with the girl who was afraid to close her eyes because she kept seeing a 'scary lady', and it turned out she'd received a cornea transplant from a guy who mysteriously died because one of those terrifying hatchet-woman Visitors had gotten him? I thought it was an interesting example of how these things are not just a problem right now because of Hannya, but in fact were a problem before, though presumably not as widespread.)
Anyway, it's a noticeable theme as we figure that out, but now that we know, it's more of a background thing. I think it's not less a theme of the game, it's just less apparent because yeah yeah, another Visitor another type of negative emotion.
Butch:
Well, then, how do we feel about that? We usually play games for story, and if all this has is bananas and souls, then, really, what's there? It becomes an action game with periods of banana. Yes, sure, we play games like that (looks at ac) but at least those games have characters and dialog.
Loothound:
THEMES? You wanna talk about THEMES? THEMES?
Or practice, whichever. Anyway, I think we might have wandered away from the topic because a lot of new potential ingredients got thrown into the pot all at once. I'm talking mainly about the plot reveals (Hannya using the corpses of his wife and daughter, who is also the erstwhile cat) and the voice recordings we keep finding from Ed and "a certain scientist."
A lot of these are placed so that they're very hard to miss as you do main story stuff, so they're probably our most reliable source material outside of obvious plot stuff. I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb to suggest that Hannya is the scientist whose musings about his daughter's pancakes we keep coming across. Of all of the potential THEMES we've thrown in the mix, it's starting to seem to me like ambition/hubris is playing a lead role here.
A lot of the bad that we come across in the game is referred to as 'corruption,' and it's been mentioned that it is caused in part by human negativity. So human negativity seems to have this spiritual weight that Hannya is trying to harness to do his thing. Now, the natural process of human spirits passing over to the other side has been explained in Ed's recordings. Hannya is apparently trying to reverse engineer that process to achieve an unnatural end. A lot of the bad we're seeing is a consequence of that. So I'm thinking that there's a sort of 'dark side of The Force' thing happening here, where the attempt to use a natural phenomenon for personal power/gain has a corrupting influence on people.
Hannya is just the most extreme manifestation of this. All of the spirits and specters maybe are suffering from the same basic corruption as Hannya, but he's leaning into it deliberately to gain more power to achieve his ends. So, maybe a commentary on human development in general? As natural creatures we use our gifts to gain security and control, just like animals, but humans have taken that natural drive to an extreme where it is corrupting us in ways that damage the world and ourselves. Something like that…
Feminina:
This is a good point about Hannya – the game's story is all about negative emotions kind of blocking people from proceeding through stages of life/afterlife, and Hannya is certainly an extreme example of this. Maybe it's about how there's a way in which he can't move on from something (his wife's death? some other, more mundane concern? unsatisfying pancakes?), and he's now preventing everyone else in Shibuya from moving on as well. Embroiling other people in his own stuff, but using their own stuff to do it.
It's a poisonous cycle of people not being able to deal!
And I think I personally don't feel any particular way about it? There's obviously still a story here (we're finding recordings, hearing from Ed, working on getting back to another confrontation with Hannya) so I think we're just in the phase of the game where we hunt down collectibles for cats and solve the problems of ghosts, powering up for the point when we decide to actually pursue the main story.
As you say, a lot of games have this stage, and I, at least, enjoy the weird little side quests (in general) enough that I'm fine with it. Some of them are frustrating, but I think it's fun how they're each a little ghost story. Almost like each one is an episode of the X-Files or something similar. Hear about a ghost's weird concern, and go investigate!
I also kind of like just roaming around the city collecting spirits, which is oddly satisfying...getting up on buildings, looking around, gliding here and there...
Butch:
Well, true, Looty is right about hubris playing a huge part. Pride goeth, all that.
And yes, we're getting voice recordings.
I think one thing I'm finding jarring is the lack of other characters. Sure, we play games that are told through voice recordings and found documents all the time, but they don't generally also have just one other character. Here, we get all this chatting from KK, some effort to build KK as a character (though that school stuff was DLC...huh....) but nothing else. I want to talk to someone. Or, I want it to be one of those games where you just have voice/documents. I find that it's hard to develop story/character like this, and, if you can't do that, then THEME becomes trickier.
All we have to go off themewise is Hannya. He's getting all the lines.
Loothound:
So right about that X-Files vibe, especially if you read KK's notes. Those things are kind of funny. I think some of this comes from our play style (at least Femmy's and mine) where we sort of pound the heck out of side stuff before dong a lot of story. I mean, we're both maxed out on level (it caps you at 55 it seems), she's got all of the cat toys, and I'm three skills away from having all of them—and we're on Chapter 4 of 8 on the story. It sounds like you're in a similar situation, so of course we're going to be a bit slog.
Butch:
WHAT???????
Dudes, I am trying here! I search! I poke!
I'm level 28? Or so?
I thought I was poking.
Of course, you play a lot more than I do. Must admit, yesterday I charged ahead clearing Torii gates because I was thinking "They are ahead of me...must catch up...."
Feminina:
As for characters, there's Rinko, and Ed – they have some lines and we occasionally actually talk to Rinko. And we've had some flashback info on Erika. But it's certainly true that for the most part it's just Akito and KK roaming around having one-off interactions with ghosts.
I don't know, though, I don't find it that much different from it being just V and Johnny Silverhands roaming around through vast stretches of Cyberpunk 2077, having one-off interactions with people who gave us quests.
Yes, there were a lot more people IN that game, but most of them were background – the meaningful interactions weren't significantly different in a lot of the stuff we spent time on. Obviously the RPG parts were indeed significantly different, and since the side-quest-givers weren't ghosts who moved on when we finished their quess, there were some opportunities to form recurring relationships that we don't really have here, but if we're not going to ding this game for not being an RPG (which I think we're not, because not all games can or should be), then I'm not sure we can ding it for not having a lot of developed characters when the main point of the story is that almost everyone is dead, and also, I think, that their inability to 'develop' is what's holding them back and is the only reason we're seeing them at all.
We could certainly say that lack of developed characters is going to be an issue with setting up a story this way, but I don't know, I feel like it kind of works. At least, I haven't found myself missing other characters much.
Also, I can't claim to have ALL the cat toys, although speaking of characters with whom we have recurring relationships, there are the collector cats! They are not particularly well developed, however. Why do they want these things? Who knows! Not our business to ask. We just provide the sometimes-horrifying items the customer wants.
But I'm sure there are some things they want that are in areas I can't get to yet, although I do have all the ones I could reach at the moment. Because I know what cats like...I'll get what cats want...
Butch:
Well, I don't need it to be an RPG per se. Lots of games that aren't have lots of good characters, from Sully and Elena and Chloe (sigh, Chloe) in Uncharted to Tess and the two black dudes in TLOU to Dag and Sigurd in ACV and I could go on.
They could've let us talk to Ed and Rinko more.
And dude, no real other characters in Cyberpunk? You've hurt Judy's feelings.
Please tell me that wasn't an 80s music reference.
It was, wasn't it?
Loothound:
We're definitely piecing this world together mostly through indirect communication, kind of like one of those books where you get the story through two people's written correspondence. The lack of NPC development is definitely a thing, though, and there are two things that might be causing the feeling. This game lacks any active back and forth between you and the NPCs, which Cyberpunk had. The conversations, such as they are, are completely boxed in without any options on how they go. The other thing is, everyone looks the same. In other games the NPCs are distinguished from each other through voice acting and character design, so you feel like you're meeting more people. All the ghosts in this game look the same, and the voices all kind of sound the same. It gets to feel very repetitive, and outside of the actual dialogue it pretty much is.
And yes it was, with the word cats replacing the word boys. I thought it best not to comment on it.
Feminina:
I don't know what either one of you are talking about. 80s music? Did I even listen to music in the 80s? Shrug.
Anyway, that's a really good point about how all the ghosts look the same and also sound about the same. They have different stories, and sometimes the stories even give them some interesting character (like the guy who couldn't resist selling things he shouldn't have sold, or the one who committed suicide in the cursed building but refused to drive other people to do the same), but they're indistinguishable from each other in every way but text (especially in the subtitles!) so that character really gets kind of flattened.
Butch:
Right. Even random NPCs in other games get faces and whatnot.
In English, I could swear it's the same voice actor for each one.
Feminina:
I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same one or two in Japanese.
I think probably this is intentional.
Because they needed to save money on actors. Ha!
I mean, maybe that, but also, it fits in with the way that all these spirits are held back, right? Their attributes and personalities have been reduced to the thing that's keeping them here, which is generally some odd concern that is not at all reflective of the fulness of who they were in life. They have An Issue, and in this way they are trapped, the same as all the other people who have Issues.
Which ties in with the way the Visitors are manifestations of these very specific negative feelings that presumably are also not representative of the fulness of peoples' lives.
Loothound:
We touched on that idea before, about their selves being flattened into their issues. Dante said something similar in the Inferno, about how the damned in hell basically become indistinguishable from their sin, so they all just blend together.
What great bang for the buck. Save on voice acting and differentiated character designs AND make a commentary on people's obsessions homogenizing them!
Feminina:
Very true, you did make that point about Dante. It was probably in my subconscious, waiting to be connected to a joke about saving money.
It's brilliant!
I do kind of wonder to what extent the game sees Akito and KK's quests as fundamentally different from the things that keep all the spirits from moving on. I mean, we sympathize with Akito wanting to save his sister, and with KK wanting to stop Hannya from messing with the fabric of reality or whatever, but the truth is, they should also both be dead and moved on (KK because he IS dead, and Akito because he was dead after Hannya tossed him around in the hospital, and is only alive again because KK jump-started him by leaping into his body or something). The only reason they're still here is because they can't let go and move on, which is exactly what we've concluded is going on with the spirits, right?
Again – the things Akito and KK don't want to let go of definitely seem more worth hanging onto, to me, than a worry about not being able to find your shoes, or wondering what happened to your dog, or not having any toilet paper. But is that just a matter of priority?
I wonder if in the end we're going to have some kind of Zen truth about how we need to let go of all attachments, both the ones that seem obviously pointless to cling to, and the ones that are harder to see that way.
Loothound:
Oh, man, is that an interesting point. And this whole thing is because of Hannya's inability to move on from his wife's death (even though I'm thinking that his wife had affinity and he was using her to further his research before she died, but anyway…)
Then there's that thing that happens sometimes when you transmit spirits, where Akito sort of goes hazy and you hear his sister's voice saying "it's okay, you can just go," or something to that effect. Maybe it's Hannya manipulating things to scare Akito off, but maybe it's a genuine call for him to free himself? We know from the flashbacks that Akito has guilt over abandoning his sister (literally, emotionally, not sure?), and maybe that's HIS thing to let go of?
Ack! So many things!
Feminina:
Right! Maybe she really is encouraging him to let go. It's also interesting that we haven't heard anything from Mari herself to indicate that she wants to be rescued, or is even aware that she's in danger. It's hard to see how Hannya wanting to use her as a focal point or whatever could be a great experience for her, but we don't know for sure that she's even tied very closely to her body anymore. We were told she's in a coma...so maybe she's in the process of letting go herself, and is not even all that invested in being saved.
Maybe saving her will mean Akito making Hannya let her go, and then letting her go himself? And then letting go OF himself?
We don't know! But there are a lot of potential angles.
Butch:
So many angles! And I will do my best to actually get there.
The only thing we've heard Mari say is "It's so hot! I can't breathe!" But I have said, and will say, that's not her now, that's a flashback to the fire she was in. She, too, may well be dead. Is likely dead.
The game, though, must see KK and Akito as different because we know that Akito doesn't look all blue and transparent like the spirits we're helping/saving. We have cutscenes, we have his hands, he's not like them.
Though, another thing that I haven't seen established (maybe y'all have): how come the spirits we help in side quests seem to be able to go...wherever, but the blobs need the phone lines?
Oh, and I now have "I know what boys like" wedged in my head so thank you for that.
Feminina:
I have no idea what you're talking about, but you're welcome! Heh.
I have wondered about that, with the spirits. I think maybe it goes back to a distinction we proposed way back at the beginning: that the spirits we're helping are lingering ghosts of people who were already dead before Hannya's fog hit, and the spirit clusters we collect and send through the phone lines are people who only died recently from the fog.
We can't help those ones move on to the next world because they aren't supposed to be dead yet -- they've been pulled out of their bodies and trapped here by unnatural magic, and so we can grab them and send them back to their bodies (according to Ed). Whereas the spirits who were already dead can't be sent back to their bodies (which presumably are buried or cremated or otherwise uninhabitable), but can be reassured about their concerns and thus helped to move on to the afterlife.
It's interesting that Hannya's fog trick can't hold the ones who are meant to be dead. Hm...maybe that's the important thing about Mari: she was kind of already dead when he started his project, but also kind of still alive, so he's able to hold her spirit because she sort of died from the fog, but also to use her to make his connection with the next world because she was already almost there.
He did say, when he was looming over her there in the hospital, that she was his connection with the next world, right?
Loothound:
Well, we do have that recording that says that Erika asked Ed about affinity being hereditary. This is why I think that her mother, Hannya's wife, had it and that has various implications. We know that Akito has the affinity, so maybe his sister does as well? Maybe that's why she's key to Hannya's plot?
As far as the spirits go, are we sure that phoning them in is sending them on to the next life? I mean, yay that they aren't going to be fueling Hannya's plot if that's the case, but we're working without any hope that they might be restored to their bodies when the fog is lifted? That's more of a bummer than I've been feeling while playing.
Butch:
I don't have a lot of hope of restoring anyone to anything. I mean, after the school bit, KK is talking about his family and says "To them, I'm dead." He doesn't say "When I get back to my body, I'm going to give them a big hug." He seems to think that isn't possible, that they're out there, safe, maybe he can keep it that way, but he isn't seeing them in this life any more.
Feminina:
I'm not at all sure that we're not saving anyone! Ed makes it sound as if we are, and sure, he might not be telling the truth or may be mistaken, but I think our working assumption is still that sending spirits out through the phones can restore them to their bodies.
KK is another matter, I think he was already dead when the fog came, so yeah, he probably has no realistic hope for his own life, but that doesn't mean there's no hope for any of the spirits.
Loothound:
Yeah, I think that KK is a different matter entirely. I'm gonna stick with the more hopeful interpretation until I find out for sure otherwise.
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