a compelling review, specifically the sociocultural commentary of creative artistic media as vehicles for driving/carrying culture and being there for the people it represents/reflects/depicts while being able to navigate and chameleonize with the broader conditions of social contexts at the timePatatitta wrote:
To The Moon
this game was not about cryptocurrency 0/10ok, but actually, this game is peak.
To the moon is a RPGmaker videogame about two doctors exploring the memories of someone who is on the verge of death in order to help them achieve an unfulfilled dream.
There is a lot to unpack in this game, first of all, the actual story, at a more broad level, is really, really good, this is a game that is supposed to be emotional and thought provoking, and it really nails that, the actual dynamic of the two doctors makes a great counterpart to the old man and their wife. They feel very human in a way, yes, what we may be seeing may be pretty tough for us, but not really for them, it's their job, so they still crack some jokes here and there, it's only when things start to get heavy that we see a shift in their character, which is what causes most of the drama and conflict of the videogame.
The story takes place in a contemporary society, yes, they have MP8 and the ability to travel through memories and alter them, but the actual society is like it was 10 years back, this is actually vital to the story, as the actual game wouldn't work very well in a futuristic setting
And that is, because the wife, river, is autistic, and a lot of the game is about autism, how it manifests in different people, the actual way people respond to autism in modern society, and the toll it takes on the person.
John (the husband), comes from a very normal, middle class american family, that means that they never really had the experience of living in a community that is pretty homogenous, while river is an outcast that percieves the world very differently, so, at the start, the interactions between john and river were messy, john didn't really understand her at all, john didn't even know people like river existed, and river didn't understand that a situation was awkward or whatever.
Thing is, river wasn't diagnosed with autism until much later in life. This is a bit of a problem, since because of the way she percieved the world, she never really understood social norms, and since she really couldn't express what she was feeling as she thought it was normal, no one really explained it to her like my family and school had to do for me as an example.
When the diagnosis happened, john kinda rejected the idea of it, he never really seem to accept it, in fact, he didn't really seem to try to understand river, which leds to a very sad story later in life
Now, moving to meta elements, I REALLY like how the way autism is actually described in the game, as, the actual term, "autism", isn't ever explicitely mentioned once. If you're like john, you can finish to the moon and not realize river was autistic.
The only real confirmation we have is a dialogue where a secondary characters refeers to john as "Not neurodivergent", implying river is. Thing is, this game released in 2011, the term neurodivergent wasn't really in the public conciousness just yet, someone like john wouldn't notice the game is actually about autism, which is a good thing, since there would likely a lot of controversy and drama if it had been blatant. Only people who would be accepting of the game message would really understand it, it's a like a secret handshake or ritual, people who were autistic would feel seen and accepted and loved, while people who would find it problematic wouldn't make a fuss about it.
Games like this are good for normalizing things that in our current society may be controversial, in fact, a lot of the advances we have made as a society in recent history regard to many topics like this one have been able to flourish thanks to works of art like this one
But this game wasn't only problematic or polemic just for that, remember, this is 2011, and this is a indie RPGmaker game about pretty heavy topics. Remember what online discussion was very active during that period of time?, if videogames were art or not.
This game is a prime example of videogames as art, but again, you kinda had to ease that in. Indie prestige games weren't really a accepted game genre back then, so they kinda had to disguise this
While this is an RPGmaker game, it made SURE you wouldn't notice, they changed the menus, the control screen, what some sprites do on screen, they didn't want you to notice it was an RPGmaker game, because RPGmaker games were often seen as low quality, kinda like how unity was seen not so long ago.
The sprites have a lot more pixels and resolution than most pixel art games you will find today, which in fact, kinda does make the game look worse, but that's not the point, the game had to look professional. If it was released today with more simplistic graphics and more standard RPGmaker controls and UI it would probably be a better videogame, but masking it that way definitively helped the videogame.
Also, I find it poetic that a game about autism and how it's often looked down upon and missunderstood in society has to mask the fact that it is about autism and that it's art and that it's made on rpgmaker, because it too would be looked down upon and missunderstood in society.
S rank, no questions asked, this game actually has two sequels, will play them, idk if I will analyze them or not, depends on if someone requests it.
i've thought about that for a looooong time with art/animation/music/games generally, and always wonder how i would be able to learn to do something similar to that, where i would be able to at least be responsible with the messaging or delivery of my theoretical future creations like games that each express something from my experiences and observations and curiosities/interests/indulgences
