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Developer: Sting Entertainment
Publisher: Atlus
Release Date: April 8, 2008
Systems: Wii (reviewed), Saturn, PlayStation, PS2
ESRB Rating: T
Official Web site
0:00 One of my friends recommended this game, and Atlus offered to send me a copy, so I figured, "Why not?"
0:01 The game's title appears over an expanding black mass. An anime intro begins, featuring lots of disturbing, disconnected images: a flopping fish out of water, a murder of crows, some bloody sword battles, the word "Absiste," a lonely king on a chess board. "Heal Your Sins, Heal the World," is the concluding message. OK, I'm suitably creeped out.
0:02 The speaker on the remote rings in a loud, high bell tone as I hit A to start a game at Normal difficulty.
0:03 "His EEG readings are moving violently," says one unseen doctor. "Increase the barbiturate sedative," says another. Much more medical babble commences as we pan over scenes of a green hyperbaric chamber.
0:04 A bit of loading and I'm put in control on a thin, blue-haired boy with some rather basic clothes. He's running around a dark, outdoor corridor with a brown dirt floor, gray brick walls and creepy music.
0:05 I pass a creepy-looking kid. "Picking up items is my hobby... though I can only hold five items," he says. This makes me grin. Then I accidentally hit the kid with a tap of the B button. "Don't hit me... just anything but that right now." Well, that's almost idiomatic English...
0:07 "My eyes keep twitching and it won't stop," says a monotone-voiced, horned girl sitting on a throne as I pass. I'm seriously weirded out and confused here.
0:08 A bunch of the weird people around here are talking about finding the Neuro Tower, but no one seems to want to tell me where it is. The whole thing has a dreamlike quality to it.
0:10 I'm attacked out of nowhere by a flying metal fish. I never saw it coming! A few quick B button punches make short work of it. My failure to find the tower has lowered my "vitality" to zero, which in turn means I'm taking constant damage as I continue to look.
0:11 The Z button centers the camera, but the jump is so abrupt that it's hard to get my bearings after the centering. If you're going to copy
Ocarina of Time, at least do it well. Sheesh!
0:12 Cut scene time. I walk up to a blonde-haired angel, complete with a white robe and wings. "It seems you have difficulty speaking," he says matter-of-factly. He asks if my memory is damaged. I don't react at all. "Head for the bottom floor of Neuro Tower, that is your mission." He gives me a steampunk-style gun. "There is meaning in you using it." If you say so...
0:13 The gun is called the "Angelic." I pick it up just in time to stumble across the Neuro Tower. "Can you hear my voice? I hope you can come to where I am soon," says Mr. Angel. Walking around some narrow, tech-inspired corridors.
0:14 I make it down one floor before quickly succumbing to another floating fish monster. Before I know it, we're back to the green chamber. "He died in the consciousness simulation." More medi-babble. "His spasming is subsiding. It's working... The future of the real world isn't pre-defined." "It's too hard to live in this world without some sort of Baroque. Now go wherever you want. This will be the real atonement for your sin." Is he talking to me? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?