Baroque – Wii
Baroque, Developed by Sting Entertainment and published by Rising Star Games, was originally released on the Sega Saturn back in 1999, but has been updated and re-released for the Wii and PS2.
Suitable for ages 12 and up, get ready to get Emo! Close the curtains; part the side fringe and stop smiling- we’re about to get serious!
The game is a dark and sinister RPG that takes place following a world-altering cataclysm called the Blaze that took place on May 14, 2032. The world, now existing in a twisted state, is populated by creatures that were once human but that have lost their hearts and minds to the Baroques inside them. (Hence the clever name!) You play the Protagonist, a young man who carries the burden of a sin he cannot recall. He’s lost his memories and cannot speak.
At the start of the game you meet someone called Archangel who gives you the mission of going to the bottom of the Neuro Tower and a bloody great bastard gun (seriously, it’s bigger than you are!) called the Angelic Rifle. Now, the Neuro tower is the former home of a religious organization seeking to save God. Archangel tells you that by purifying the Meta-Beings within the tower and reaching the bottom floor, he will find redemption for sins committed that he cannot remember.
Now as the story develops it is learned that the Archangel removed noradrenalin (“pain”) from the Absolute God and poured corrupted data into the Consciousness Orbs to keep the Absolute God from fixing the distortion growing inside of it. Thus pissing the god right off! He then harvested the Absolute God’s pain as the Littles. Littles, the embodiment of pain, are creatures that can only live inside “ampules” and were cultivated by Doctor Angelicus and Longneck. Their purpose was to be used as bullets for the Angelic Rifle, so that the Archangel can purify the Absolute God and take its Idea Sephirath to become the new Absolute God.
OMG.. She has got real issues with you!
As the story goes on, you hear about The Koriel, a group of False Angels within the Malkuth Order who tried to stop the Archangel by attempting the Dabar fusion (fusing a human with the Absolute God to “hear god’s will”) and all about how the protagonist had a Conjoined Twin brother and they shared one heart. Only one of them could function at a time and both were dying. They sacrificed the older brother and picked the protagonist for the fusion. When the Archangel learned about the Koriel’s plans, he interrupted the fusion and caused the Blaze… This has lead to you having the power of Purification which no-one else seems to have.
As you play the game you will come across a number of other important characters, such as Alice, a Short-haired Girl who seems to have a bit of a grudge against you, Eliza, a long haired girl who tends to stay out of your way, Littles, and Doctor Angelicus, Archangels assistant who checks in on you from time to time. Some of them you have to kill but most are just there for the sake of making the plot more entertaining. In the end, the protagonist fuses with the Absolute God along with Alice, Eliza and the Littles. The world is still distorted, but they decide to form a consensus reality (purification of the world is impossible) by merging with the Baroques of the Meta-Beings.
There are a few clever little points to this game, like The Collector, A boy who loves to pick up items from the Outer World and stuff them into the bag on his head. He comes in very helpful for when you die, because if you throw an item into a consciousness orb, the item will reappear outside the tower and be picked up by a character called the Collector which means the weapons are there for you to pick up. There is another way to avoid being stuck at level 1 with no weapons- SAVE THE GAME!! You get the opportunity to do this every time you go down a level throughout the game- now this is a good thing, because if you couldn’t you’d be back at level 1 quite a lot!.
Game play wise, if I’m honest the game leaves a lot to be desired. It’s not a bad game but it’s definitely not a brilliant game. I found the controls rather fiddly to use to start off, but that’s just the Wii, but then once I had gotten my head round it all, it was nice and simple to use. The fighting in the game felt slow and un responsive and the magic items are hard to use, having to go into the menu’s to use an item when there’s no button on the controller where you can line up your magic spells and fire them out with the touch of a button. This would have made it much better for me.
and it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire!
My main issue is that it’s far too repetitive, all the levels feel the same, the bad guys whilst they look different to each other, you could just kill the same guy however many times over and have done with- and don’t even get me started on the camera view, its almost impossible to see where you want too and trying to battle with gribbly’s whilst all you can see is the wall behind you, I must say, It’s bloody impossible.
There is no denying that Sting Entertainment have obviously put a lot of effort into the game, using magic spells looks awesome, pretty cool industrial style metal music to the game to give it that darker feeling and the voice actors are all British and we all know that they make the best in game voices, but this unfortunately doesn’t make up for the lack of Variety in the game, after all variety is the spice of life is it not?
So- the only thing left for me to do really is give the game a score- It’s not a great game and in my opinion it should have been a fantastic game. Everything was there to of made this one of the biggest games for the Wii in 2008 but it isn’t.
It makes a valiant effort and I score it 2 and a half Stars out of 5