Dear fellow gamers, let me introduce you to the first contender in the 'Let's polish off all those digital Vita games before I lose interest in them' sessions! (Which games will still stand in the end, no one knows.) To say that I had low expectations regarding
Psycho-Pass would be the understatement of the week: not only are reviews for that game far from dripping with praise, but it's part of a greater franchise that started with an anime
— which means that it had the potential to be derivative as heck
and incomplete unless one watches the anime in question. Heck, I would never even had purchased it, if not for its current ridiculously low price tag on the PSN. How delightful, then, to be pleasantly surprised by that game and end up loving it in earnest! Here's how
PP managed to win my jaded gamer's heart:
It's short! All too often, VNs simply cannot tell a story in a concise and elegant way. From
Chaos;Child to
Code:Realize, many overstay their welcome, dragging every single scene and stuffing them with useless dialogue and descriptions until the poor reader screams for mercy. This is exactly what
PP abstains from doing, choosing instead to go straight to the point and telling a short, sharp and slick story. One evening is more than enough to clear a run of
PP, which makes the prospect of experimenting with it and hunting every single one of its many endings much less daunting than in your average VN with a 15-hour long reading time.
It's sober! With its subdued art style and colour palette,
PP visibly aims for an older audience than your average VN. There is no trace of
kawaisa in the character design, and your usual anime tropes are nowhere to be found; instead, we are treated to a cast of complex and relatable characters, whose relationships and modi operandi are pleasantly realistic. No power of friendship or going to the end of the world for the sake of a pretty face here! As
PP's two MCs, we face dilemmas and quandaries on a regular basis; and like in most real-life dilemmas and quandaries, we have to make a decision alone
— and face the consequences of said decision alone as well, as the game wisely abstains from taking a moral stance towards its own world or firing deus ex machinas left and right.
It's efficient! PP might be short, but it does an amazing job at telling its story nonetheless. This is in no small part due to the fact that unlike many VNs,
PP doesn't clumsily separate action and exposition, forcing us to endure the latter before launching into the former. Both are one and the same here: we get to know the crew through their reactions to the story's events, and we take in the stakes at work and soak up the atmosphere through those same events. It's also worth noting that there are absolutely no fillers, every line of dialogue and every narrative development being meaningful. Last but not least, we players get to enjoy plenty of agency through the game's many choices and branching paths: forget about being just a reader, this is a true Choose Your Own Adventure VN we have here.
I played a single run and got the "Symbol of Faith" ending; and although I still have to uncover a metric ton of routes, I'm not gonna play more
PP for the time being. My run left me fully sated, in the most positive fashion: I loved everything about
PP, and it left me with unabashedly positive feelings
— and very willing to purchase its physical edition indeed. Here's to one digital game taken care of
— and possibly one new recrue in my precious collection! Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!
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