クロエのレクイエム

Cloé’s Requiem (1st part) – Business of the Children, the new stars of Horror RPGs

Ladies and gentleman, sit down so that you can receive our warmest welcome. Well, the guys you probably came to read this article for the performers that will soon delight you, to get you satisfied with their artistic… and not artistic skils.

Ah, did I say something wrong?

But what could it matter to you, dear ones right now, let’s kick off the dances and let the introduction begin!

To start telling you this story, being lovers of both literary classics and musicals, we have not found a better way than “Façade” to tell a game set in Europe from a European point of view.

Our compliments go to the authors for the choice of the historical context! It is so distant from us, more than two centuries now separate us from those individuals and those ideals. We understand that you will have felt the nostalgia …

Which of these societies which was the one of late 19th century metropolises inspired by Victorian Puritanism (and if not beyond, given some scientific discoveries that are seen in the title) was better for tell the plot of this game!

Which among these if not a society that lies to itself , suffering from falsehood and malice.

These were at least the themes that concerned the book from which the passage is taken, focusing on dualism of the individual, which in one of the neo-Gothic literary classics par excellence , “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & amp; Mr. Hyde ”, splits in half.

Jekyll fights against the more repugnant side of him to death; so we will tell the story of how two child prodigies in the world of entertainment – of the music scene, we mean – fight against the bad feelings manifested below form of curses.

INTRODUCTION

Okay, here we are guys. Forgive this… Dazed prologue, compared to all the normal introductions we have made. You will probably be very perplexed by what we have just expressed in the article, as well as by the cover for the first time totally drawn by Ele! By the way, we hope you liked it.

What could we tell you if not to apologize on the one hand and ask you to follow us to understand what we are talking about when we look at this title.

Cloé’s Requiem was a great source of inspiration for us for the story, direction and story of the characters (we even called our cat Cloé!) and it has been just as much frustration for us,  for the marketing operations that followed. What you will notice is how the effects of including gender in the larger dimension consumerist and commercial have made themselves heard for such a title.

We are here to explore together the history and characteristics of another Horror RPG with you. What we can promise anyone who decides to follow us all the way is that a story will follow that, we believe, will not easily forget.

Welcome to part one of the article on

Cloé’s Requiem

Hello! Hello! It’s EleRantula speaking!

Well, guys, let’s start this epic quest!

Although Buriki Clock did not reach the levels of Makoto Sanada’s media phenomenon, they released two interviews on Cloé’s Requiem : one on Famitsu, one for Nicovideo (apparently they participated in a festival organized by NicoNico , but we’ll focus on that later).

But! To get to those we should wait for the “Author-Work Report”, which will be present in the second part of this very long article.

So, to be as technical and methodical as possible about the development history let’s start thanks to their site (and thanks, as every time, also to the English translation of Google Translate from Japanese to English, which, however macaronic, helps me enormously) to see exactly how the game was “born” and how it continued to exist, and then expand even more in the various topics, which will then touch scattered points of this list.

Well. Not a bad list.

So, let’s start in October 2013, after Nubarin’s first title “Kusoge Story” (literally, ‘Terrible Story’, being “Kusoge” a Japanese term for a terrible video game) of which I don’t even have current traces except the page by Freem!

I think the Product Story is going to be pretty long today… Dang, I have to divide it in parts.

Part 1: 2013: An average start to an average game.

2013

“Cloé’s Requiem has been released”

The game was released on October 2, 2013, released on Freem! like many others in the genre, and is 11th in the download rankings of the site. .

Here, too, we know the identity of the game’s authors … Or at least what they call themselves: Nubarin and Nanashi No Chiyo (although personally, since she is called Chiyo Nanashi in many interviews, I suspect that Chiyo Nanashi is the real name of the second member of Buriki Clock, the team of these two authors).

According to the Japanese Wikipedia page:

“Production started at the end of July 2013 and Nubarin said she” wants to make a horror game using a western-style building” At the beginning of development, the protagonist was supposed to be a sculptor, but since Nanashi was studying music at school, he changed into a musician and the game became a work with the theme of classical music. “

Furthermore, it seems that Nubarin was inspired by The Witch’s House.
What the hell does this game have to do with The Witch’s House in terms of substance? I’ll never get it.

In any case, the game gained a lot of popularity after its release.

“And why on earth?”

Well…

2013

“Cloé’s Requiem wins the ‘Fighting Fighting Award (Horror Classic Award)” at the Nico Nico Self-made Game Festival 2 “

Here’s why!

Cloé’s Requiem participated in the NicoNico Self-made Game Festival . It is a showcase event for independent games; according to what I have read from the rules, everyone can participate… As well as our Buriki Clock team.

They got the “Fighting Spirit Award” (Or “Classic Horror Award” or “Fighting Fighting award” … I would really like to know Japanese for these things) and although to see the title you have to go through many other games that have won in this category, it seems that this award at the online event organized by NicoNico dedicated to indie games gave Buriki Clock the necessary boost for having made its subspecies of boom or, in general, more visibility.

And indeed …

2013

“Cloé’s Requiem is introduced to the public, being published in the monthly ‘Comptiq'”

PROBABLY this one, the game was being released in early October, and this was printed in early October

Comptiq is a Japanese magazine dealing primarily with computer games, published by Kadokawa Shoten.

“Wha? Who?”

Those who don’t hang out a lot in the Japanese scene regarding the promotion / publication of fictional works will wonder.

From Wikipedia: Kadokawa Shoten is a Japanese publisher and division of Kadokawa Future Publishing based in Tokyo, Japan. Kadokawa publishes manga, light novels, serialized manga such as Monthly Asuka and Monthly Shōnen Ace, and entertainment magazines such as Newtype. Since its founding, Kadokawa has expanded into the multimedia industry, particularly video games (such as Kadokawa Games) and live-action and animated films (such as Kadokawa Pictures).

We have already mentioned this … Multinational, it seems, in the article on Yume Nikki . But keep it in mind, we will need it especially for the second part of this article, in the Author-Work Relationship , together with Enterbrain.

So, although it is not clear to me how much space it had, if it had only a short article or an entire presentation sheet, in 2013 (I desperately searched for the month through the covers of the Comptiq editions that came out that year, but found nothing given my zero knowledge of Japanese) Cloé’s Requiem begins to expand in Japan, up to…

Part 2 – 2014: The Supernova.

NicoNico’s participation in the festival and the subsequent article (I guess) on Comptiq led, as I said, Cloé’s Requiem to more than good visibility, up to…

2014

“Interview for Nico Nico Self-made Game Festival Game Creator”
“Interview for Famitsu”

“Cloé’s Requiem at the NicoNico stand of the Tokyo Game Show 2014”

According to the “Media” section of the Japanese Wikipedia page, this game was exhibited in the NicoNico section of the 2014 Tokyo Game Show:

Or rather, the light novel that sums it up, which we’ll talk about later.

With a lot of article that bears the name of:

… We will discuss this in the Author-Work Relationship, though.

But also … Okay, really? After so little time since the article for The Forest Of Drizzling Rain I have to re-do this stupid skit in which I list every single way in which the poor games we deal with are milked to death?

Okay, okay, it’s funny … Geez …

Breathe in with me…

An appearance on Japanese Mezamashi TV (oh, this is new), two novels (in my opinion, both … With a few words to describe them. You have seen one in the image on Tokyo Game Show), a small comic in the magazine “Almost Free Game Magazine”, about three interviews (we add an interview for Mole Games, after the Tokyo Game Show), a part of the 2015 NicoNico Chokaigi Haunted House (we have already mentioned it with The Witch’s House and Ao Oni), a manga called “Cloé’s Requiem -rêveur-” (which tells a whole other story, huh ?!), a collaboration with the Princess Café in Tokyo and-

What? Don’t believe me? I am very serious! These things are strong in Japan!

Ahem, so … You interrupted me just when I was saying the highlight …

AAAHHHH!

Sorry, my blood runs cold just to see this.

You will understand better why later, in the second part of the article… I can only tell you that, as you can see, the two cats that have few screentime in the game have been humanized.

Yes, don’t try to find meaning in these marketing operations , don’t worry about the meaning of this narrative element… Not yet .

Okay … So, you have now understood that Cloé’s Requiem in 2014 had practically every kind of success possible , so much so that it also generated an extra spin off / story.

Given this, I wanted to talk more about the “Supernova” phenomenon.
My sister had already talked about it in the Mad Father article, and it is based on a very simple question.

“Did the success continue?”

In the case of Cloé’s Requiem …

No . I’ll tell you dryly.

The success of the production team, after the first two years after the release of Cloé’s Requiem, has not continued, although Buriki Clock has continued to make games.

(You are more likely to know this because it has been translated into English: Fantasy Maiden’s Odd Hideout)

This game is called Trauma Traum.
I just tell you that if you know him, you have the same urgent need for stalking as I do for the developers of Horror RPGs.
(Well, I write the Product History for a reason)

What are these games, then, in the history of Buriki Clock?

I want to consider them, unfortunately, desperate attempts to continue being a real production house , and not just the authors who have had “luck” (you will understand in the second part why those quotes) with the their first title and milked it to the last.

Up to the last really.
(Image from Buriki Clock’s Twitter profile, showing Pierre who has suddenly forgotten all the pent-up frustration and hysteria shown in the game …)

Of course, these other two titles also had merchandise : Fantasy Maiden’s Odd Hideout had a novel, along with other gadgets such as pins, etc. in the official Buriki Clock store, Trauma Traum even a… CD? I think it’s a sung cd, but in any case they have had their events and also funding …

But after 2014 the decaying era of Buriki Clock has begun.

You can make sure of this if you answer another very simple question that I ask you.

Have you ever heard of Buriki Clock, outside the current Horror RPG and outside of Cloé’s Requiem?

But apart from this question, which I leave open even if we all know the answer …

Let’s go back for a moment to 2013, the beginning of the golden age for Nubarin and Chiyo.
What, therefore, 7 years ago brought Cloé’s Requiem where it is now …
Probably?

Eerie backgrounds, classical music, a story set in the past … It is a title that certainly has its own class, no doubt about it.

I’m not sure what can be said for the beginning. There’s the Buriki logo, and then you directly start to take on the role of Michel, incredibly calm after carrying out his third cold-blooded murder , who runs before the chaff of time chases him (also called the cop , or as some would say, so as not to be put in the jail by the beak cit. [1] ).

But we have anticipated this for you , to make you understand how, here too as in other games, narrative consistency is certainly not the workhorse of the title. In reality, what is shown in the game as an introduction is the boy who runs away from something by going, through the passage of a coachman, to an unknown house. And that’s it.

But we can see, before the new mansion is introduced …

… Yes, in short, this sort of medieval fortress …

Okay, from here we can see two things : the first is that is introduced from here the one who will be the co-protagonist of the story (no, she is not the main protagonist because we follow the change in his attitudes over the course of history as much as Michel does), the second thing that we understand instead is that surely it is a person that has some screws loose.

But what we are interested in knowing is that it happens following the first flashback that will be introduced to us by the game. Apparently the words that have been introduced to us do not concern the main plot, they would seem out of context, but the game forces us to change our minds by finally giving an identity to this mysterious voice!

Here he is, in his magnificent sprite. This explains why in the second part of the game the girls preferred to use silhouettes rather than draw new adult figures.

The point is that once the flashback is over we have these three lines:

 

Hey, but then that crazy maniac is Cloé’s father!

Damn what a lousy man. Why… . This is ultimately the most disturbed character. No?

Oh-oh-oh, well finally after so much procrastinating…

… After only mentioning the topic even when it would have been appropriate to talk about it …

We can finally talk about a character driven story where the characters are valued properly!

Let’s try to introduce some theory. Probably many of you will already be able to guess what this definition indicates: we are essentially talking about a type of story that goes on on the basis of the actions that the characters perform . I realize that at first friction it can be difficult to distinguish the stories with horizontal development from the vertical one, so I will try to give you some examples.

Horizontal development stories rely heavily on external inputs that push characters to take action, at least that’s what I’ve noticed. Nothing takes away from the fact that the gimmicks and therefore the categorizations often mix, but as regards the Horror RPGs I noticed that this has never happened to me, so I can bring you more concrete examples: take Mad Father and The Forest of Drizzling Rain .

On the one hand, the story begins because of a curse, so Monika who unleashed it is the antagonist of the story and moves the story for Aya, who will have to fight the zombies. Mad Father is, among other things, very easy to classify in a type of horizontal storytelling also because of all the action sequences and particular gameplay that characterize it.

The Forest Of Drizzling Rain could be defined in the same way, the events are mainly focused on the background of the village in which Shiori and Suga are involved. The Witch’s House could have been a character driven story?

So, surely the characters are more active, Ellen was the one who killed her parents and made the deal with the demon starting from her inner motivation and a rather static external environment, however if we should consider the video game in the its context I wouldn’t dare to say that it intends to tell you a story , the title seems rather anchored to its gameplay before shedding light on the background.

Again, there is The Crooked Man with whom we had faced the matter of the hero’s journey. True, a lot of space is given to the intentions of the characters and as subtle as the definition of “character driven” actually is, I could also say that this game is. However, there is something that holds me back from defining it as such, and it is the constant presence of the antagonist, the crooked man, who is the real engine of the action and is what drives David to leave. If you remember the scheme of the hero’s journey, it involves a double relationship with the call to adventure into which he is pushed: first he rejects it and then accepts it, thus investigating the personalities of the main characters. It is true that the crooked man would be a metaphor for David’s current state, but we cannot deny that Duke really exists (indeed, he really existed) and that is why we must take into consideration all his interventions that have conditioned the actions of the protagonist.

And it is for this reason that I insert the plot of Cloé’s Requiem to fall perfectly into the type of character driven. In fact, if you think about it the type of background in which the characters are found is rather static, it would be much easier to imagine a story more on the slice-of-life style than a horror genre plot, this because certainly the choice to work on a work in costume partly determined the nature of the product as a “historical title” (although, to be a game set in France by our “European cousins”, little historical imagery is found – especially for some elements -, and from this point of view it is not very reliable. In any case, yes, this little slip also happened with Mad Father – but maybe we shouldn’t insist too much if their target audience was the Japanese one).

Therefore, precisely because it is a static background, everything that the characters do derives from inner reflections and psychological changes on their individual and social state.

But I will not be the one to talk to you in detail about the characters, there will be Ele in the second part of the Trump Card  (spoiler: she is the one between the two who had spoken of the case of Satoshi in Corpse Party, she’s also responsible for writing our characters, so I’ll leave you in good hands for that).

However, I don’t even remember from which article this feature was, I believe in The Witch’s House, but also for Cloé’s Requiem we have two trump cards in one, and – at this point you should have understood it, indeed, perhaps it might almost seem obvious – character development is one of them.

I and you will focus on the second point, the direction . We are talking about a direction that has allowed us to love and make memorable a confusing plot and a supernatural background more inaccurate than Corpse Party’s!

So I think for a while you will have to have suspense about the discourse linked to those three screenshots…

… And about the twisted mindset that this infamous kid  develops throughout the game.

So, back to us. The direction of this title is actually very very particular, because it responds many times to the style of the game which is mainly based on the narration of events (and not) in wall of text . Basically a Satan’s bestiality, if you know how much we condemn this practice in our articles.

But Nubarin and Chiyo managed to take advantage of this “style limitation” by putting all the emotional tension between the lines of text in the game . I can say that they did it very well, and it was a very, very difficult task. Knowing how to do a good direction is not at all obvious , let alone how they will have done that they did not even have the visual support to enhance: everything comes from reading the texts and the sound repertoire. The problems started when they started rushing and loading the main content up to the ending…

But we will talk more about this in the future. So we try to focus on the focal points and try to do, as we didn’t do since Blood Covered, an in-depth analysis on a specific sample .

The scene that I propose is this.

Many of you will remember it as “the mother scene” or “the mother’s diary”. Yes, let’s talk about that, one of the wonderfully opened, poorly developed, and worst ended story arcs.

Why do I say “worse ended”? Well, well …

Do you think it’s a decent way to end a subplot?

Do not worry, starting from this scene we will then analyze why by talking better about the Work Defects.

However, let’s go back to talking about the positive points. As I mentioned earlier the scene centered on the mother’s diary is in my opinion among the best in the whole game .

So, to begin with we have already met Cloé upstairs.

Ah, and I would like to note in particular how the one we saw during the chase …

Her, here she is. Even if we can guess, also given Michel’s suggestion, that this “thing” we have seen resembles Cloé, it is presented to us in a completely separate way (I am speaking of a physical separation, in the literal sense of the term) and obviously by a personality totally disconnected from the one encountered upstairs.

At this point in the story it would be easier for the player to interface with the “cute and cuddly” side of the girl he just met…

… And then this is introduced instead…

As we said before, this will be an analysis of the text in the most literal sense of the word .

First of all: the “music” used in this part I could define it as a reference to knives with which you intend to pierce your ears . The metaphor to which I am referring referred, from a particular textbook on directing (whose name I currently do not remember), to the music that appears in the opening credits of the very famous Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock .

That’s what I meant when I said that the direction of this title is excellent. It offers a lot of emotional depth to the lyrics, which matter as much as the visual side of the title and indeed complement it. Without the texts of Cloé’s Requiem we would never be able to understand its all-round meanings (… indeed, unfortunately, the misunderstandings and misunderstandings have occurred anyway, but we will discuss this in the future).

Cloé’s mother tells us about her feelings towards her daughter…

Perfectly plausible, given not only the plot of the game but also the contexts of the time. For the uninitiated we are talking about a type of society where normally girls from good families, once they reached a certain age, were ready to enter society, that is to say to be married , therefore when they dressed them up for the holidays to look for a good match who does not say that mothers, themselves married very young in most cases, could not feel a sense of competition in comparisons of daughters?

… That’s it.

I am not a historian, what I know comes from some personal insights that I was able to make about the time.

Obviously, in any case, by “perfectly plausible” feelings I mean the feeling of envy . What is written after is actually not so normal …

Keep this screenshot in particular….

This comes before the one above. You will need it later for what Ele will tell you on Cloé

We can note, certainly an interesting element, that the vision she has as his daughter is that of a teddy bear.

And this is why we found it really confusing to associate the teddy bear theme with the maids, even though she killed them. This is because it was a theme that seemed truly “special”; unique, closely linked to her daughter and, even more interestingly, this description that the mother gives us of Cloé fits very well with the “sweet” and “rounded” design of the little girl. They have made full use of the character design assigned to Cloé here, is not an end in itself.

Let’s add a point in favor of this magnificent scene: its continuation outside of the diary. In fact, we have the gossip between the waitresses which then manifests itself in the two teddy bears.

Here we tie everything perfectly: a maid saw that Cloé’s clothes were cut and to the lady seemed right to kill her. The scene continues until you check the picture of the woman who has aged.

This relationship with the text is however different from the type of relationship that is offered to us with the text in Faust Alptraum: one because there are images to comment that are simply described, and then because I see it more as a experiment to try to replicate a more “literary” type of narration or as a “manifestation of erudition” than with the intention of transmitting emotional sensations (this is one of the reasons why although it is among my games favorites I certainly can’t take it as an example to talk about narrative titles).

Before Ele can introduce you to the main theme of the game, I would like to mention another scene in which the direction, indeed, the direction of photography is was phenomenal.

This particular moment of the game taught me a lot regarding the evocative rendering of the scenes. The screen tint that first becomes dark and then increasingly red supports the child’s extremely psychologized vision of reality , because in this particular point of the plot the direction is all centered about the characters who are the real stars of the game. Even more than what happened in The Crooked Man, here the environment is modeled on the basis of how the character in question is experiencing his personal situation.

… Consequently, this superfine work of dramatization of the events allows us players, spectators and here to me and Ele as critics (if you think we have the right to be defined as such) a satisfactory work of interpretation .

Yes, you will remember from the Mad Father article, this will be the second time I mention it during our journey on the Ludi Tarantula Archives.

If the work allows us to interpret it then we will finally be able to build our meanings on the basis of the language on which we have been taught . So, here I am taking the liberty of working on the interpretation of the sign of what concerns for me a theme (any theme, not the main theme. We will see in the future why I want to make this difference) which can be extrapolated from the game. I will extrapolate it, for example, by examining the use of the color red in this game and then I will link it to other elements.

First of all, as you might guess, I’m not choosing it randomly, since not only does red appear violently on the screen whenever a distorted dimension of Michel’s personality is introduced , but there are other details who insist on this color.

We could talk about the red writings, used when you want to highlight a distorted concept expressed by the characters as you can see from the same screen above, but we can generally dwell on numerous examples.

The red eyes from which the boy is haunted in the maids’ room…

… The return with Charlotte’s red eye (and the sense of being watched and controlled), when she reveals herself in the gray room, connected this time with her curse … We can connect this to the theme of possession, both did and suffered by Michel.)

When Alain reveals that he wants to kill his daughter, a scene that took place shortly after we saw the “rescue” carried out by Michel (an act of jealousy, probably – the theme of possession also returns here, keep this in mind for the Appendix -)

Or, well, at this particular spot where we can see a wild Cloé (hey, for once we don’t use that expression as a meme) with a red dress . Here we can see her eyes or her hair, white, are used to build another association for us with the curse closely connected to Blanc, precisely.

This is a very very explanatory image actually this , we have not used the term “wild Cloé” by chance. And this is precisely because we associate these two colors that represent two specific themes that are therefore closely linked in the title: passion and death .

Ahahahahahah, yes. Passion. Passion .
Put this way, I realize that now it seems that I’m talking about a soap opera, after all the hyper-intense dramatic register of the game does nothing but enhance this bizarre thesis. But I swear to you that I am telling you these things with knowledge of the facts, I am aware that if I do not express myself at my best I risk to make you think that the issues that the game faces are a lot of bullshit.

We refer to this image in which it is seen for the first time…

Here. Here the use of white dominates. White and red.

I want to mention another moment that can be achieved if, by staying in “crazy killer” mode with Michel and killing the white cat you can see how this, according to the description, seems to have a chance to move, unlike the black one .

Let’s try to reflect on one thing: the fact that at the point where it is shown in the game Cloé was wild would like to emphasize that what she became a victim of was the accumulation and loss of control over all his most negative passions .

Note that when I use this term I am referring in particular especially to the classical conception , if I do not remember erroneously we are talking about an idea that derives from Ancient Greece, that what concerns the theme of “passion” intends to understand the term in a very negative meaning and which is opposed to the “purity of soul” instead characterized by absolute rationality .

Well, now that I remember well, I’m sure of what I’m saying: it was Plato who used the metaphor of the white horse and the black horse (here as “black horse” we have the white cat, which for those who do not know it in Japanese culture is a color associated with death), and I’m also pretty sure I’ve used the use of this metaphor often during some delirium on my own I suppose. But don’t worry, I don’t mean to give you a big ass discourse about this.

What interests us now is that Cloé, as well as being a victim of her own more negative passions …

As shown in this screenshot in which she carpeted the walls with her little hands stained with blood…
We could say that she was the victim, first of all, of the unbridled passion of her parents. It is no coincidence that on the one hand there is lust , on the other hand envy , themes dear to Christianity regarding the treatment of deadly sins.

Yes, then, if we add to this a brief reference to anger…

…We can say that we are more on horseback with the rest of the cast.

Okay, leaving aside these idiotic digressions (capital sin and Christianity have nothing to do with what I want to tell you, I don’t want to confuse your ideas), why am I telling you this? Let’s get to the point. From the strong association that we have seen within the game we can say that not keeping control of one’s emotional state leads inexorably to death , but the white cat that does not seem to suffer the same fate as the black one and the spreading the “Chloé curse” throughout the house before it leaves us permanently feathers would like to suggest that once these strong feelings are generated they will hardly tend to die .

After all, the curses in Cloé’s Requiem are negative emotions that can take on a life of their own, aren’t they?

The white cat is destined to survive, expands in the environment and in people’s minds, is incredibly active , and its destructive disposition is extremely contagious. This unlike his alter ego, the black cat that once killed never wakes up again, thus decreeing the status of being passive and closely linked to a condition of death, of undergoing object .

Well, here are the Yin and Yang. These concepts shouldn’t be foreign to our girls. Ahahah, Noir and Blanc. How fucking nice .

So what?

Already. So, well, this I think should finally explain ( at least partly ) why the first thing we did in this article was associate Cloé’s Requiem with “The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll & amp; Mr. Hyde ” by dear old Stevenson.

In the book he was presented to us as these species of monster, hunchbacked ( lame, blind and deaf and so on , to quote Quasimodo as another wretch of 19th century literature) … A monster yes, a capable demon of stepping on a child .

One of the most loved scenes by illustrators of the century!

And then, come on, how can you not fall at the feet of this great man?

Can’t you see the splendor?

In short, this representation and continuous distancing that the book takes, in the form of an investigative title, from the beloved by all Dr. Jekyll , it could surely remind us of the level of distancing and demonization that curses take place.

… Which in this case, linking Cloé’s Requiem to The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde becomes: put control on your passions (negative feelings) or you will be the cause of tragedy and death .

Jekyll keeps his distance from Hyde by disavowing him as Cloé keeps his distance from Rambo-Cloé , who is treated as an enemy to be defeated.

Yes, she can be defeated with a hug, ok, but she is still a beast of Satan to defeat.

That is to say, this is the vision that the Puritan Victorian society had of its passions at the time.

If the society that claimed to hold off and fear of its worst sides it was because it was the social structure itself that said it to maintain order .

And as you can see now our insistence on the song “Façade” will certainly be clearer, or at least I hope so.

Leaving aside that here we speak of Victorian society, in France people have generally differentiated themselves from their attitude precisely to be “more avant-garde” if we want to say so; we are not talking so much about historical clarifications as of thematic proximity with the title. In fact, in the social context that we are presenting for the article masks were created in society because society based its principles on unattainable models which didn’t can find confirmation in the daily reality of facts but no one had the courage to point it out. It was the poor side of society to which “eccentric” behaviors were attributed, after all.

They were the dangerous people who deserved to be mistreated (“punished”) and marginalized, isn’t it? Not the gentlemen belonging to high society. It was an excuse to justify the distinction between classes and this is what the literary classic denounced.

Or rather, it didn’t denouce it completely. At the time it was already a scandal to associate a beastly figure with the idea of ​​the perfect English gentleman. Imagine if Stevenson had made them compare in a more direct way.

… But in the musical we are talking about, one thing happened.
In the musical there is a song like Alive ! – And I recommend that you click on the link as this takes you directly to the version sung by Anthony Warlow, also the voice of the Phantom of the Opera for those interested.

(Images from the 2012 Jekyll & Hyde production with David Hasselhoff)

In this scene we can finally see how Hyde is not only closely related to Jekyll given the murder of individuals who, after all, we see since the prologue that were on his nerves, but in particular we see that in the transformation he finally gave vent to all his frustrations .

Scream to the world of his joie de vivre (see how he feels free from min 3.42 !) even if it means welcome within oneself the forces of evil (I quote the lyrics), and then so we could also interpret the potion as a simple stimulant, nothing more than an artificial drug, perhaps. An exciting.

Everything he repressed here comes to light, including the weird fetish for Lucy that you can hear at 1.49 minutes of the first link I passed you (believe it or not, this prostitute’s subplot will also be mentioned later). You will realize this for yourself, if you pay attention you can hear how it seems to smell the air like an animal , but the point is, heck, we can realize that what is singing is not he’s a demon like the others, but Jekyll himself! After all, there is no Edward Hyde.

….

… .Ah, well, what do you expect me to tell you at this point?

For me, the matter is clear: one of the best features of Cloé’s Requiem is that it lets the characters go completely free .

Yes. Exactly.

But really,  totally , perhaps too much. Okay, what am I trying to tell you?

That first of all even though the final enemy to be defeated is Cloé herself in the end she is the only one who transforms, who seems to have a metamorphosis and not even as complete as Hyde’s morphology. In short …

… Guys, let’s remember one thing together.

The one on the left and the one in the right image are the same person.

Here too, the boy in the left image and the boy in the right image are the same person . It is so obvious.

Only the expressions change, they do not do any metamorphosis, they simply change over time and this is what makes them wonderful characters, from our point of view, which have even been able to overcome the myth that the literary classic launched. As promised, in fact, later on we will dedicate an appendix just for them.

How to conclude this, then?.

Stevenson seems to tell us, with Jekyll’s suicide, that the only way to escape this existential conflict is death. There is no escape.

Buriki has preferred to propose an alternative solution : with the growth and recognition of the error it is possible to purify oneself from the disease and return to empathize with one’s neighbor, rationalizing one’s mistakes and returning to the right path .

This also happened with another character from Fantasy Maiden’s Odd Hideout, to which I will only mention here: Ange.

… Let’s say that wild-Cloé was not the only “animalized” character of their title .

Here, this CG you had met before while reading the article when you saw the cover of the game, you see her crying on the grass. Well, know that she is crying, for those who do not know, because she just remembered having committed a miiinor crime like mass infanticide. In her game of origin, one of the most recurring sub-texts was that of the primordial instinct of nourishment  (oh well, we’re talking about vampires and it couldn’t be otherwise). In addition, here too, to the web of inner growth.

It may not seem like it, but this title had all the credentials to be defined as an excellent thriller!

Yes, it seems to be a characteristic of the Buriki Clock characters to confront their more primitive sides.

And yes, compare with these. And they suffer there.

Yes, they suffer a lot.

So here’s one of the themes that the game addresses , according to my interpretation : acceptance of yourself and facing your worst side.

So, reconnecting to the discourse started before, the yin (our passive side, connected to reasoning) and yang (the active part, the chaotic and irrational energy of our behaviors) must coexist in a balanced way in our life choices.

And finally guys I’m done digging, I’ll get out of the box soon.

As you can see I’ve talked about other themes, in this first part of the Trump Card, that the game doesn’t even seem to insist that much because in the end, Buriki Clock’s real focus was another one.

However, know that all these ways in which I was able to read the work derive from the many little clues left on the road by the game itself . In any case it is still at the base of the criticism to work on the meanings of the text on the basis of the same letters printed on the paper .

Do you remember? We had already talked about this topic in the article on “ RPG Horror and Storytelling ”.

In short, I was able to interpret a theme dealt with by elements of direction and staging ; as we had anticipated since the article by Mad Father , this is where we can realize all that a profound work can do. This is all the beauty and potential of interfacing with a story that does not stop at first appearances .

(Ah- and I add: the themes as you can see are constantly intertwined with the events you of the main plot and its characters , right Sanada?)

Now, we also said that in addition to directing, the SECOND Trump Card are the characters . And with this you will understand why in the course of all the previous analyzes we have chosen not to focus on character development that other narrative stories have presented to us.

And this refers us, if desired, to the introductory part of this paragraph when the first thing we pointed out was to say that this is a character driven story.

We have not analyzed other characters in this column precisely because all the other works we have analyzed did not want center the focus on the characters but, in fact, dwell more on their “adventures” than they lived (the search for father, the escape from the Gallery, the pure gameplay in The Witch’s House ect ect ect…)

To talk about the characters it is necessary to interpret their emotional facets.

… Because it is extremely important, really, vital , that in an interpretation work you work with details that are already provided in the work under analysis , for do not risk making theories and “over-analysis” for their own sake.

We could also have formulated free interpretations, but in fact we are told little about the contrasts in the behavior of the characters, for example.

A first element we noticed about the other characters in Back To The Future is that the conflict of their personalities, if any, is treated more as an exceptional event than a real path of growth.

Let’s take Mary in Ib, for example, in the ending “A Painting’s Demise”.

Yes, here we see her as a “victim of her home environment” that she runs around the rooms and finally calls her father’s name.

However, this is an ending. Why don’t we look at how it behaves in other contexts for a moment?

Even if you want to reveal the side of a “child in need of love”, however, this is constantly in conflict with emotional tension , since we are from Ib’s point of view , according to which we are dealing with a probable crazy killer .

… This happens most of the times she appears.

Let’s take a practical example?

See what happens in the most classic ending, “Promise of Reunion”.

Would you have spared her life with that ravenous look?
Really, tell me if in so many points in the game she is not treated only as functional to her role as antagonist only useful to keep the plot going.

Well, it doesn’t surprise me that in this part who knows why instead of empathizing with her many fans have limited themselves to noting “oh, no! This madwoman is murdering our beloved Garry! ”

Kouri will certainly has been stratospheric in offering the emotional conflict of the audience towards a character who all in all is borderline (not so much an antagonist as an end in itself), but not enough .

A character in most cases changes over the course of a story , a character needs a path to tackle , which is the main reason why in the Corpse article Party we had not really talked about the characters (because even if they had an ambivalence of personality this was not dealt with within a specific development).

So what I’m trying to explain at this point is not to give you the round up of characters to understand “who is the best” but to understand which of all these has the most linear development within their own plot. I am simply explaining to you the reasons why we have not covered all the characters in the Archives with whom we confronted during the column.

Let’s take another example: Ellen.

Ellen, Ellen, Ellen.

She’s good, right? We all love Ellen. Even in this game, one of the few moments in which he seems to reveal the reasons for her murders and deceptions seems maybe the diary, but honestly I would almost venture to say that Ellen’s character is indeed unrecoverable . You will agree with me, for anyone that was traumatized the first time for The Witch’s House finale, that this girl embodies pessimism in mankind .

Already only for the fact that she lives like a parasite in the body of another person. Surely it would be very interesting to study in other areas how her sociopathy was formed (as we had already said in the dedicated article) but since we are here on the Ludi Tarantula Archives, a site on which we intend to dwell on the focal points of the internal analysis of the game in the strictest sense of the term (a point on which we would have stunned you already enough, I suppose) it simply did not seem appropriate to deepen.

This is why I told you about the importance of internal clues, and this is why the only one that perhaps comes closest to the requirements for a character analysis to be called complex like the characters of Cloé’s Requiem and Aya, it is no coincidence that we had opened a parenthesis on his growth path in the article on Mad Father.

Who else do we have, David? We just felt about David that we had nothing to add to what The Crooked Man game had already said . We mentioned the strange case of the Corpse Party characters a little while ago! We had already talked about it in their dedicated article, while for what concerns Mogeko Castle, as much as the theories to be elaborated on the characters may be interesting, we cannot understand how we could dedicate particularly in-depth analyzes on them.

But, look, if you still have doubts, I propose an example on a similar theme concerning the representation of the characters on the stage.

Here is a practical practical example of how these two could, all in all and at first friction, both appear as ugly faces proposed as jumpscare but which in reality are treated very differently.

This, by now you know the image by heart, is Cloé cursed before the battle. Close up, dark circles. Laughter can be heard above all in the background and the scene is ultimately static .

This is Alfred in the final chase. A potrait that occupies the whole screen pops out with an ear-splitting laugh ready to open our backside with its roaring chainsaw.

And this is how all this long justification on why this was the first case in which we focused on the characters of a work ended .

But see it this way.

From this moment on, the gates of Hell have practically opened wide and these very long parentheses on the analysis of the characters and themes within a narrative videogame work will surely return several times in future articles.

Because since this generation the titles have come out more and more fucked up.

Okay, okay, beyond everything I’m making a generalization because anyway these will also be the exponents but we have never analyzed all the titles released in these periods.

What I am trying to say is that today we have taken a fundamental step that will surely serve us for the future, especially for the last two reviews we have (so beware that we are not talking about the Back To The Future column) which will show us, on the other hand, how not to write a character , consider it as a great gift we offer you for as we approach the end of our reviewing business.

But now I think I’m really digressing too much, I’m spoiling more than I should.

So, after exhausting you only with what was in the end a introductory hat to start approaching the style of the game and the way it treated the characters, I can finally give the floor to Ele , who will finally dedicate herself to their internal analysis .

So here they are finally just for you, Charlotte, Pierre, Cloé and Michel!

… Music…

“The ladies an ‘gents’ ere before you –
Which none of ‘em ever admits –
May ‘ave saintly looks –
But they’re sinners an ‘crooks!

Hypocrites!
Hypocrites! ”

[1] Directly in reference to the lunatic, magnificent and very elegant gentleman of the evildoers Jack Dawkins called the Dodger!

Because when it comes to costumed works I will certainly not stay away from all possible and imaginable quotes. Ah-Ah-Ah. Ahh. Heck.

One comment

  1. Ah Cloe’s requiem , one of the saddest horror rpg ever existed . It is very unfortunate that this amazing game does not blew up as big as Ib,The Witch’s House,or Mad Father. Heck i didn’t even know about this amazing game in the first place before you guys told me about it on Facebook , that’s just how unpopular this game is .

    Let that aside for now. Cloe’s requiem graphic, sounds effect ,story, and character development is on the same league as the trio legendary horror rpg that i have just mentioned earlier.The advantages that Cloe’s Requiem have is that in my opinion it is easier to understand the story. Just by playing the game and reaching the true ending , we (player) can understand that Michael and Cloe is both an abused child . The saddest part of this game is to know that Cloe killed her father in self defense because her father is going to kill her , and by doing that Cloe got cursed by her father spirit , resulting on her fall into insanity, which ultimately led to her death. In simple term , Cloe did a murder to avoid death , but got death in return.

    And about Buriki Clock , it is nobody fault that their other game is not as popular as Cloe’s Requiem, because it is very hard to make a game that pleases the masses. Compared to many “unlucky” game producer , i would say that Buriki Clock is on a better situation.

    Overall , good article , you guys did a good job digging the history of Cloe’s Requiem , down to the history of the game producer . And for the article itself , just like the previous article there is too much word inside bracket “()” which can be easily rewritten without using the bracket for easier and more pleasant readings experience, i mean , it is very confusing to understand and keep track of each word inside bracket.

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