The dark city, like an equalizer at high volume, spreads out in its high-tech decadence. His living eyes of neon lights looked into the dead synthetic city. There is almost nothing natural left in this world. Is it the wind, which with its chilly movement still makes those who are hopelessly tired move?. These are the creatures that scare us the most right now. After all, if the city was originally the creation of human hands, then man-made bodies of people are a new phenomenon. So now I’m sitting in a half-empty room, my face is illuminated only by a whitish light and distorted by inexorable shadows. They will never miss their chance and will find refuge in all the curves of our body. Who am I? That’s not important right now. The only important story is that I want to tell you. No more. But no less.
In those now infinitely distant years of the beginning of the twenty-first century, a new type of art was persistently developing. And if you’re reading this, you probably know what I mean. But why this mystery?? Of course we’re talking about games. And it was then, in 2000, that a game born at the junction of eras was released. Not only millennia, but also genres. Cyberpunk as a film genre was in decline. Cyberpunk, as a basis for the game, proved its right to exist. And the campaign was one of the first to decide on such audacity Bungie West with the game Oni. But if our cyberbrain still remembers other pioneers of those years, then oblivion was destined for Oni, along with Anachronox. Why did they treat her this way?? There are several reasons for this.
One of the few well-done cutscenes.
Anime in European style
The first, quite serious reason, lies in its strange positioning. You look up the reviews from those years and they all seem like a carbon copy: “the game is made in the style of anime”. And then you finish the game and wonder where this very style is? In the opening and closing animated video, the big eyes of the female characters? Or maybe cut scenes, where the models, quite good for those times, practically do not move, and the dialogue is diluted only by squares with their static portraits? In general, Oni is one of the most textbook examples of how Europeans want to do something in Japanese. And they really want to, but they don’t succeed very well, because the difference in cultures, even with current multiculturalism, has not been canceled.
Only the camera angle will change in https://slotcloudcasino.co.uk/ dynamics.
At the same time, the developers openly stated that they took inspiration from things like Ghost in the Shell and John Woo films. And if the influence of the latter can be traced only in the staging of fights, then the game is pretty much imbued with the style of GitS. The main character is almost completely based on Major Kusanagi in terms of build, hair color, and hairstyle. Even her name differs only by a few letters at the beginning. The environment also fits well with the idea of canonical cyber-punk. One might even say that it is too laconic. Huge spaces are sometimes filled with nothing. Apart from, perhaps, terminals, the use of which is, in principle, not necessary, but if you set out to understand the universe of the game and figure out what’s going on here, they will help you with this.
By the way, for those who for some reason want to delve into the lore of this world, Dark Horse published a 4-part comic book. At one time, the happy owners of the first issue were the buyers of the official computer version of the game.
Alas, the comics turned out to be not very meaningful and are of interest only to collectors.
Radical ecology
Let us finally turn our close attention to the conflict that makes this universe at least somewhat interesting. True, you can’t expect any great originality from her. It’s 2032. Eighty percent of states’ territories are annexed by the World Coalition Government. This government is turning vast toxic regions into nature reserves, while safe urban living is ensured through atmospheric conversion stations. This government is based on a strict class system and focuses on satisfying the needs of the ruling class. From time to time, devices appear among the lower classes that allow them to clear large areas of toxic regions from contamination. What the government is fighting with police measures. The organization that was created for this purpose is known to everyone in this world as TCTF. It is she who opposes the main resistance organization called the Syndicate.
The diversity in costumes is nothing short of pleasing.
Our main character, Konoko, is an operative agent of the TCTF organization. Who, in 11 hours of play, will manage to guide us through a series of tragic events, learn a lot of unpleasant things about her past, and even meet unexpected relatives.
I’ll be honest with you and admit that the story is not the strongest part of this game. But the gameplay is exactly what it is. And even then with some reservations. In general, the gameplay is based on three components – button pressing, hand-to-hand combat and shooting. And to find the right button, sometimes you have to run around a fair amount, because it is usually placed at the far end of the level. Otherwise, you need to rack your brains, wondering which of the heroine’s acrobatic abilities is best used now, and also wait for the necessary timing to move through the corridor with traps. Purely theoretically there is stealth here. Since there is the ability to sneak, and during training you are told that running creates a lot of noise and you need to keep this in mind. And even at the beginning of some levels you are encouraged to make less noise. But in reality it is practically not applicable. After all, the gradation of light and shadow simply does not exist here and the enemy, seeing the heroine from afar, will immediately react and run to attack. Unless the panic buttons can get in the way, and if the enemy runs up to it and presses it, the siren will sound, and the room will be filled with even more opponents. And for the local combat system – a large crowd in a small room is fatal. But enough about annoying things, let’s get to the combat system.
You will see Konoko on transport more than once, but unfortunately, there are no stages with its control.
Hong Kong heritage
And this is the main, if not the only, significant plus of the game. But, perhaps, not all of it, namely the hand-to-hand part of it. Here you have blows, and their combinations, and tackles and throws. And as the game progresses, it will diversify even more due to new techniques. But in this diversity lies a serious negative aspect of the game. Firstly, power attacks are quite difficult to carry out. Of course, we can say that you just need to get used to the timing. But in battle you will categorically not be allowed to do this. Moreover, the idea that for a power blow you need to press a button simultaneously with pressing another one is very weakly ingenious. There is another problem superimposed on it, the essence of which is that your opponents, to one degree or another, also master similar techniques. They just implement them much more successfully. And the block, although it generally exists, does not allow you to effectively block opponents’ attacks. Because it is categorically not clear which blow will penetrate him and which will not. And in general, the randomness of the enemy’s use of techniques is the biggest oddity of hand-to-hand combat. You can never be sure that during your next attack the enemy will not take you for a throw. And even jumping around him like an arctic fox and spinning like a top, you don’t guarantee that you won’t fly over his back when you try to make a couple of hits on the enemy. It’s hard to say if this is good or bad. After all, what is fierce hardcore for some is a worthy challenge for others. But my opinion is this: difficulty based on chance is unfair difficulty. Because it does not allow you to learn from your mistakes and not make them in the future.
We can’t help but mention the weapons, because there are quite a lot of them for a game that, whatever one may say, is focused on hand-to-hand combat. There are two types of mutually exclusive magazines for weapons. But weapons that use only ammunition will devour their magazines without any restrictions, be it a pistol or a rocket launcher, everything is the same. We won’t go into detail about each specific type of weapon, because we are only allowed to carry one weapon with us, and there are so few cartridges that you can’t really get around. Is it possible to mention a sniper rifle, which is called a “mercury crossbow” and destroys enemies with the first shot, which is extremely valuable here.
In addition to weapons, there are several types of auxiliary devices in the game. And the most important, widespread and useful is hypo-spray.
And it would be a simple analogue of a first aid kit, if not for its special properties, supposedly dictated by the heroine’s special reactions to taking this doping. They consist of increasing the damage of melee attacks when the spray restores health beyond your standard value.
The next device is much more prosaic and is energy shield, which protects you from being hit by weapons. An extremely useful thing, alas, quite rare.
And, actually, phase mask, which makes you invisible for a ridiculous 30 seconds. And in between times he refers you to GitS. The notorious stealth could be built on its use. But the rarity of this device and its fragility put an end to this.
But what is surprisingly difficult to find fault with is the musical component. Synthetic sounds of electronic music, into which oriental notes periodically burst in, sound quite lively and interesting.
It’s never easy to sum up. After all, no matter how good or bad the individual elements may be,OIt’s wrong to look at the whole piece. But in its entirety it does not cause attacks of uncontrollable admiration. And it doesn’t even amount to a good game. Her interesting ideas are drowned in the dubiousness of their technical implementation. In general, the artificial intelligence, which was good for its time, is annoying due to the dominance of the random factor in its attacks. It would seem that simply high difficulty is not such a problem, but the lack of basic saving anywhere and rare checkpoints destroy your nerve cells in legions. And the only thing that raises absolutely no questions is the music.