#played the original on PS2

[ghostgreen]

the OG

#love this game #played the original on PS2 #and then it was on sale for PS4 so i got my husband into it haha #bully #canis canem edit #jimmy hopkins #doodles #sketches #fan art

[kajamnikk]

alt version of my sona, basically mix of me and my robot persona to represent myself a bit more

with ps2 startup screen aesthetic bcus i loved my ps2 lololol

#myart #art #fanart #robot #robot oc #original character #persona #robot persona #ps2 #play station 2 #old consoles #digital art #illustration

[rude-harmonixer]

I was originally going to write on Twitter but character limits are too much of a bother so here I am. This will probably be very messy but I'm dealing with media that probably 10 people are familiar with, so... Whatever!

I've recently found this site: https://nervetower.neocities.org/analysis.html

It has a bunch of translations and essays on the game Baroque, originally released on the Sega Saturn.

This specific bit of info has made me OBSESSED with thinking about the game.

Sure the game was literally written in burst of inspiration by drawing tarot cards because the writers had a deadline and writer's block at the same time, and the protagonist being canonically trans was only in a draft for the prequel material, but the game is surprisingly consistent with its themes and the symbolism can still be read through a trans lens.

And because it's not confirmed and ambiguous, the protagonist can be read through multiple gender povs.

But like, why is this such a big deal? Well, Baroque and its prequel material just so happens to have one of the most incredible anti-bigotry narratives I've ever seen in a game. Specifically anti-ableism and anti-eugenics, among probably some questioning of organized religion and how corporations use it to further alienate the public into a cycle of oppression towards marginalized people. etc.

The protagonist is mass produced and manipulated by the Archangel to "purify" whatever he deems should be "purified", using guilt (the Christians/Catholics favorite thing) to do so as the protagonist is made to not remember anything besides their immense guilt over something.

For the game to progress the protag must regain their memories and find out they're a copy of who knows how many other copies, a human made into a product basically, made to feel special because they won't be distorted by their desperate delusions to escape a world destroyed by corporate greed like all the rest and have the power to "purify" things, when in reality they're just emotionally and genetically manipulated into being that.

A perfect pawn.

Now where is the trans symbolism? Well, aside from how little bodily autonomy the protagonist has, here's where things really get interesting:

In Baroque, God is presented as a woman. Before the Great Heat (aka apocalypse), God's Sense Spheres (her omnipresence, transferring data like the world is a body) assured that no great distortion would come to the reality humanity lived in, God would feel pain and know there was a wound to heal. Then the Archangel, who's really just some scientist, started fucking with the population's mental health on purpose because he wanted to kill God and create his own perfect little world. That's the short summary anyway.

At one point, with a lot of brainwashing using God's screams of pain, he created the Order of Malkuth to help him. But later the members woke up from the brainwashing and organized a desperate attempt to stop the Archangel: they would fuse Koriel number 12 (presented as a boy) with God so she could communicate in data that humans could understand. What they didn't expect however is that Koriel 12 had their own problems, and with Archangel interrupting the fusion, those problems were very amplified.

Koriel 12's guilt over being alive and God's suffering made shit hit the fan for good with the Great Heat.

And that's how the protagonist becomes mute and receives the power of God and anim- I mean, "purification".

The game begins and despite Koriel and God being now two parts of the same being, the Archangel tells Koriel to go to the bottom of the Nerve Tower, where the "Mad God" is basically imprisoned, and "purify" her with a rifle (with ammo made from the embodiment of her pain hormones).

The Archangel is literally making Koriel kill a part of themselves that's already literally buried deep into a mind tower that goes down instead of up but still has the image of a tower instead of a hole. He's basically forcing Koriel to bury the closet with them inside it because the closet isn't enough apparently.

Koriel also can't speak for themselves anymore but their thoughts can be read by the Horned Woman, which she just says out loud without explaining anything and unless you're thinking about it you won't even recognize those are "your" thoughts being spoken by another person.

Jumping ahead, when Koriel gets to the bottom of the tower, you can either do what the Archangel tells you or can just walk towards God and unite with her.

When you do this after some dying and finding out, you'll receive the true ending, in which it is made clear that while it is in a state at which it's harming everyone, the "distortion" is actually the natural way of the world, everyone needs to cope at least a little to survive, the Archangel's eugenicist campaign was the greater problem here, not the people "distorted" into representations of their suffering and coping mechanisms by his actions.

This is primarily focused on ableism and particularly the stigma around mental health.

With a trans reading, it forms a bridge so it can also just mean bigotry in general too.

Why? Well, since the 70s or something, trans people basically have to be diagnosed with a disorder to be granted legal access to transition, that's even truer for Japan, which literally puts it on paper as a disorder. And overall, transphobia and ableism go very hand in hand.

This game is now the closest I've come across to finding a game that's secretly about trans people too like The Matrix.

And this has greatly developed the brain worms 👍

#baroque game #my gaming ramblings #if you're insane enough please try the game #not the ps2 or wii versions tho they're terrible and even if you don't care about most changes you'll most likely care about- #it more than doubling the amount of floors from the psx version which already was bigger than the original and like #please don't do that to yourself the game is already not that fun don't subject yourself to those versions #spoilers i guess but really who even cares #it's not like the surprise really does anything in-game really #you'd just be very confused playing it 100% blind trust me #also there's a whole lot I didn't talk about this is just an incoherent rambling which some might decipher maybe #if you've read all this you're very based and I'm so sorry ahsbsjenzbx

[ravenmoodle]

Beyond Good and Evil Remaster!!!!

I'm SO hype!! It'll finally be playable after the original PC port was god awful.

#ravens squawk #beyond good and evil #My all time favorite game!!! i wanted to BE Jade when i was a kid #she was THE coolest!! #and the people in the game make you FEEL and the music is so good #but the PC port was neigh unpayable even with fixes you didnt get the original experience without playing it on PS2 #i still have my ps2 copy!! probably scratched as hell #its not the best game out there but its my little nastolgia baby #and honestly i think the general themes of revolution hold up now more then ever. #i honestly think the second one.. ig it ever gets made- is going to big. #i dont think it was ever around how big the world was. it was about people #and destroying the currupt government while being goth and cool #bgae #LOOK. AT HER LOOK AT HER LOOK AT HHEEERR!!@ #I might have enough time to make a video about the original since it got accidently leaked early!!! #ive wanted to for so long but i wanted to have enough skill to do it justice and make a fun animation

[raindrvq]

Just something I've been curious abt since I've been getting more into the game and fandom

And if so what system did you play it on ☝️

#i play the original on my ps2 lol #im curious to see the results #i feel like scholarship edition is the most popular but i could be wrong #also tryna see if yall r team xbox or team playstation ☝️🤨 #bully #bully game #bully scholarship edition #bully anniversary edition #bully cce #bully canis canem edit #canis canem edit #bully rockstar #bully se #bully the game #rockstar bully #bullworth academy

[daryaspace]

⭐🌈 Katamari Damacy ⭐🌈

#katamari damacy #I bought myself a pink ps2 in late august last year and have been slowly exploring ps2 titles like katamari and kingdom hearts #even though I originally bought it to play silent hill lol

[soumic]

sims 2 pets

#the sims 2 #OCs #original character #oc: blair #others OCs #my drawings #we've been playing sims 2 pets for the ps2 #and we made these two a horrifying bathroom and it just charmed me so #I enjoyed the perspective challenge and also the limitations of using a hard pixel brush for everything

[neep-neep-neep]

im MAD

the nintendo wii had better water depicting ability than the nintendo switch!!!!!!!!!!!!1

the nintendo GAMECUB E HAS BETTER LOOKING WATER THAN THE NENTNIENDO BITCH

what is this nintendo??

what the hell is this?

what is this glowing blue goo?!!

this is the same river and pond in the original game on PS2!!!

yes the point of video games is pretty transparent water that splashes when you touch it there are no exceptions! why am i playing your game as a person afraid of the ocean if the water doesn't look and act like you kissed each droplet on the forehead and told them they can do anything

#ps2 graphics is more of a complement than an insult i assure you #Iwata's blue oceans theory literally and figuratively #water physics #water in video games #video games #gaming #gamecube #switch #nintendo #literally have you played shadow of the colossus? the original? on ps2NO? okay well you're not my family member anymore bye #vgwater #they fucked up the water in the nin64 link and mario games on nso because they lost their way after Iwata's passing #i have a pathetically large amount of gaming hills to die on tbh #anyway the gaming industry needs unions #and crunch should be something studios get fines for #at LEAST

[the-meme-monarch]

Should I play Chulip

Ur art looks interesting

And I know Wayne RadioTV played it but I haven’t seen it so all I know about it is from you

I would love to say yes but I’ve Never Played It and you probably won’t be able to either it unless you have a ps2, ps3(im not certain if this one is correct actually) or an emulator, though I’ve heard that playing it on its original hardware makes it easier ! other than that the only real roadblock is like. all of funny bone factory. it is all very tedious and difficult to navigate which I do think this is on purpose But Still i can see someone giving up on the game because of it

#i think playing it on the original hardware makes it easier if just a little bc there are button inputs that seem delayed on an emulator? #wrtv played on an emulator and consistently had problems with this but bugs frankenbugs played on a ps2 iirc and Didn’t #the monarch’s court #chulip

[empyreasheart]

i do want to watch the remake eventually (not play because unfortunately my computer couldnt handle that) but i dont wanna worry about all that until after i finish original ff7 + crisis core and the rest of ff7 content

#i will say the amount of content is confusing. to my knowledge theres a phone game that never got translated to english...? a ps2 game...? #and a movie..? #i dont understand but my friend did help wuth the order. and i foujd an english translation of said phone game but im not sure where it fit #said order #anyway i hope its fine that i will be playing crisis core reunion over the original #i prefer the original graphics but the switch and 3ds are truly my only consoles. and a sad little laptop #i just hope theres no differences in story. maybe ill watch cutscenes from the original for funsies someday #idk im not saying this to be a hater i just dont understand why games must be remastered to have high quality graphics #im not the biggest fan of the style of the remake but maybe ijust prefer stylized video games #i feel the same about kh4 (so far) #elisey speaks

[beevean]

relatives be asking me what i want for christmas/my birthday and i say "nothing" because it's easier than "either the entire prelude to revenge cd or both volumes of the curse of darkness manga preferably in japanese"

#i feel like a kid when i only wanted sonic unleashed lmao #i'd also like an original copy of cod but for now i can't use my ps2 #then again there are a lot of games i'd like to own but i can't play...

[goldensadnessdolphin]

Replaying DQ VIII again and man, that beginning is still a masterpiece, huh?

Effortlessly introducing characters, setting up the main tension, making the villain feel like a real threat, complex NPCs that aren't just text boxes you pat on the head to get The Quest™...

Also a minor thing, but after playing quite a few modern RPGs/Open Worlds, the fact DQ trusts my intelligence and just gives me directions instead of a glowing line to follow is great. I mean, I know these streets well, but I remember that that worked well when I was little too. Made me look at the world and not just a quest marker.

It's still a great game :3

#dragon quest #dragon quest VIII #dq8 #dqviii #I played the original version as well #but the 3ds remake is just better #and I will die on the following hill: #dq8 on ps2 was a better quality game than the best pokemon has ever managed #I think that should be obvious to anyone who played both #but if you want specifics #send me an ask #.txt #rant #<- mostly because my rants irl aren't always negative #but it always feels like #if I go into deep detail on a thing I like #I risk spoiling stuff #as people instinctively engage with things differently once they've heard anything about it #which is why I was still vague #but yeah; it very much holds up

[inspector-montoya-fox]

Lol

#lil miss Ting decided to boot up the ol ps2 two days before leaving and summer after summer of saying she'll play it #clock me. honestly i deserve it at this point #the last save was in 2012. before that 2008 2007 and 2005 *sobs* #so anyway... i don't remember it being this much fun ?? kinda re-assessing my entire childhood reality rn #ratchet is such a bitch too. we stan #it's also difficult ????? umm ???? #but WHY are the checkpoints in this game so atrocious? like i'm a good 5 minutes into the level and it'll take me back to the beginning #i also watched a bit from a walkthrough of the ps4 version that i just found out exists #it's basically an entirely different game but why does it seem so lifeless you know? like it fails to capture the original's charm #why did they de-asshole-ise ratchet? the point of the original is like a journey towards maturity. at least that's what i got #before earning a sense of heroism he's like throwing shade and tantrums and just wants to ride his hoverboard #on the ps4 he's been like... Cocomelon'd ? idk #i want the trial of Skidd McMarx for Ace Attorney 7 #smash

[zscribez]

ok well so both judgement games and ishin were on sale so i ended up getting them :3

#zee.txt #okay at this rate i might find a way to emulate the original ps2 y1 & y2 #and also somehow emulate dead souls #because im in DEEP #i know i said once i wouldn't play those games #but now i must have the full rgg experience #probably won't go to the lengths of learning japanese just to play kenzan #but who knows

[benevolenterrancy]

i started playing one of the ps2 lupin games, and guys, the rolling animation in that game is peak. lupin is 90% Limb and you get to see every inch of those limbs gangle through that roll animation. Stealthy tactical combat roll whomst?

Anyway, these are a few screenshot redraws because i was Compelled

#lupin #lupin iii #arsene lupin iii #treasure of the sorcerer king #the expressions are not copied from the original because my phone was not able to take a clear enough video of this janky ps2 roll action #playing on my shitty computer monitor #so i just had fun with that part #but the leg proportions are exactly as the game developers made them that was a deliberate choice on their part #dude is made out of RUBBER or has a really good chiropractor #my art #honestly consider they're ps2 graphics and move kind of like plastic dolls the 3d models actually kinda slap #they did a good job adapting the characters

[one-winged-dreams]

Anyway, the residual trauma bullshit hit me hard, I took a nap, and now I really wanna play Crisis Core or Dirge but I also don't have the energy

#i'd have to boot up the emulator to play crisis core #but i still have my original copy of dirge on my original ps2 in the living room so i might do that after dinner #i love vii spinoffs can you tell