Control Ranking: S
I had a very hard time writing this review. The game gets an S-rank with little question, but when I sat down to explain why, I found words oddly inadequate. I really don’t know what else to say except tell you to go play the game and experience it for yourself – emphasis on “experience.” Of course, that would make for a rather short and uninformative review…
You play as Jesse Faden, an unassuming woman searching for her brother Dylan. Her search brings her to the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control, an unassuming building housing an equally unassuming government agency. You begin the game by walking into a lobby and meeting the janitor, who offers you as job as his assistant.
While the previous paragraph is an accurate description of the game, the following is equally as accurate. You play as Jesse Faden, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Control, a government agency specializing in supernatural phenomena. You fight your way through the Bureau’s headquarters, which got invaded by some weird parasite-wave-things with equally weird tastes in poetry. You do this armed with Excalibur / Mjolnir, except instead of a sword / hammer, it’s a transforming gun that deemed you worthy. In addition, you have incredibly powerful telekinetic abilities and can fly.
At face value, the game basically makes no sense. But when you actually experience it, the game ends up a strange mix of “this somehow makes sense” and “it really doesn’t matter that it makes no sense.” To give you an example, you will see photographs of the FBC’s Director (Zachariah Trench) on the wall – the classic high-ranking federal official kind of picture, where he’s in a suit looking official. But then you find that he’s dead, apparently having shot himself with Excalibur / Mjolnir, and an upside-down pyramid appoints you his successor after the gun finds you worthy. You walk outside his / your office and…all the portraits have changed to you – in a suit, looking official, labeled “Director Jesse Faden.” No, there’s no timeskip – the building just saw your appointment and changed itself accordingly with photographs of you that have never been taken. Jesse, nor anyone else, ever comments on this – making this simultaneously nonsensical and utterly mundane.
Look, just go play the game, ok? Go do it. Now.
I had a very hard time writing this review. The game gets an S-rank with little question, but when I sat down to explain why, I found words oddly inadequate. I really don’t know what else to say except tell you to go play the game and experience it for yourself – emphasis on “experience.” Of course, that would make for a rather short and uninformative review…
You play as Jesse Faden, an unassuming woman searching for her brother Dylan. Her search brings her to the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control, an unassuming building housing an equally unassuming government agency. You begin the game by walking into a lobby and meeting the janitor, who offers you as job as his assistant.
While the previous paragraph is an accurate description of the game, the following is equally as accurate. You play as Jesse Faden, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Control, a government agency specializing in supernatural phenomena. You fight your way through the Bureau’s headquarters, which got invaded by some weird parasite-wave-things with equally weird tastes in poetry. You do this armed with Excalibur / Mjolnir, except instead of a sword / hammer, it’s a transforming gun that deemed you worthy. In addition, you have incredibly powerful telekinetic abilities and can fly.
At face value, the game basically makes no sense. But when you actually experience it, the game ends up a strange mix of “this somehow makes sense” and “it really doesn’t matter that it makes no sense.” To give you an example, you will see photographs of the FBC’s Director (Zachariah Trench) on the wall – the classic high-ranking federal official kind of picture, where he’s in a suit looking official. But then you find that he’s dead, apparently having shot himself with Excalibur / Mjolnir, and an upside-down pyramid appoints you his successor after the gun finds you worthy. You walk outside his / your office and…all the portraits have changed to you – in a suit, looking official, labeled “Director Jesse Faden.” No, there’s no timeskip – the building just saw your appointment and changed itself accordingly with photographs of you that have never been taken. Jesse, nor anyone else, ever comments on this – making this simultaneously nonsensical and utterly mundane.
Look, just go play the game, ok? Go do it. Now.