I don't know if I should be drawing attention to this mess of a game, but I have to say that I haven't laughed so much with a 'so bad its good' plot since Yakuza 6. Premise with some potential? Check. Bad to awful dialogue? Yes. Torrent of cliches? Hell yeah. Game plays everything it dishes with complete, absolute seriousness? Abso-frigging-lutely.
Chorus is a story of a ripoff of Warha-, I mean a galactic empire of religious zealots using the excuse of fighting demonic entities that live in a reality between realities to train psychic-gifted people into weapons of war for total subjugation of mankind. One of these "Elders", Nara, commit exterminatus- I mean, opens a rift and obliterates a planet, killing the whole population. Realizing the size of her actions, she quits the Inquisi- I mean The Circle and goes to live as a scavenger till the cult shows up again, and she is forced to go back to her old psychotic sentient ship, Forsaken (which she calls 'Forsa') and fights against the people she once belonged to.
Before anything, I call “Frankenfeminism”, the characterization phenomena where a producer completely detached from reality (or director or writer or so on), akin to the insane Dr Frankenstein, picks up pieces and bits from storytelling elements of yore(no matter how distant or unrelated from feminism they are), stitch them into an unholy abomination, pluck its feathers of what made those elements succeed in the first place and hoists its creation up in the air, screaming “Behold! A feminist!”. It doesn’t necessarily has to be a specific combination of a specific set of eras, but in the end, you have a monstrosity that doesn’t know why its alive and its purpose, unknowingly tosses feminism into the lake and reacts with unbridled anger and fear at any criticism (fire).
Nara, the main character, actually starts promising: She is full of doubts, regrets, and when the Circle attacks, Nara can’t help but do the same rituals as her harassers with some weird deference, showing that even after seven years, she still can’t completely get rid of the past. This could be really good! Sadly, any potential is tossed into the bin after the first chapter, because she devolves into a flip-floppy tool for a storytelling that is scattered and scarce in the first place.
Her ‘Frankenfeminist’ build has the jaded asshole tone of male characters of the 70’s, the ‘I can beat armies without breaking a sweat’ of male action heroes from the 80’s (without the fun cheese), the broody dark self-flagellating tendencies of the edgy 90’s, and the irritating ‘I don’t have to explain shit to anyone’ of the 2000’s. Besides that? She switches as the drama demands. One moment she will claim to her ship that she wants to quit her ways and fight as equals, the other she will demand subservience of other defectors. She will repeatedly say that she doesn't want to be a leader, then take charge out of nowhere. One moment she will admit she did messed up things in the past and not judge, the other she will be jury, judge and executioner.
And since the writers want Nara to be a badass loner, an inspiring figure of optimism and redemption, a broody closed figure and a team player at the same time (while no one can be even remotely close in competence and power as her), this results in everyone being insanely, hilariously incompetent and dumb. I'm talking of "We are in space being chased by psychos, lets try to escape in that space traffic jam" dumb, or "I will bring a heavily armed person into a shady deal with paranoid murderous cultists" dumb. Any attempts of portraying inspiring feminism in this game are, at best, clichéd and disjointed, and at worst hilariously backfire into what you’d see in an anti-feminist comic of the 80’s, where most positions of power in the ‘good side’ are manned by blunt women, and all the men are sniveling cowards or constantly need help, evil, incompetent, or a mix of those. But here, its played straight, unintentionally comedically straight. For example, a female 'inspiring' captain threatens an entire crew of recently liberated shellshocked victims of torture with court-martial if they don’t immediately go back to the frontlines. Because, surprise, people who went through violent torture want to quit. And we’re supposed to feel bad when she is shot and ends in a coma.
And the game trying to say that Nara blowing up a planet wasn't that bad (yes) and trying to make me hate people who confronted her about the families they lost by her hand was so... so hammy that I nearly cried from laughing.
There is a lot more to talk about in this hamfest, but I probably already blew the limits. So I will just say that while the voice directing is awful, the voice actors are actually good and try their best with the material given, and the gameplay is actually quite fun! Its a third person mix of Forsaken and Descent.
So I suggest that you stay away from this, unless you REALLY like to watch stuff like The Room, but even then, just watch on youtube.
Frankenfeminism so awful its absolutely hilarious.
I don't know if I should be drawing attention to this mess of a game, but I have to say that I haven't laughed so much with a 'so bad its good' plot since Yakuza 6. Premise with some potential? Check. Bad to awful dialogue? Yes. Torrent of cliches? Hell yeah. Game plays everything it dishes with complete, absolute seriousness? Abso-frigging-lutely.
Chorus is a story of a ripoff of Warha-, I mean a galactic empire of religious zealots using the excuse of fighting demonic entities that live in a reality between realities to train psychic-gifted people into weapons of war for total subjugation of mankind. One of these "Elders", Nara, commit exterminatus- I mean, opens a rift and obliterates a planet, killing the whole population. Realizing the size of her actions, she quits the Inquisi- I mean The Circle and goes to live as a scavenger till the cult shows up again, and she is forced to go back to her old psychotic sentient ship, Forsaken (which she calls 'Forsa') and fights against the people she once belonged to.
Before anything, I call “Frankenfeminism”, the characterization phenomena where a producer completely detached from reality (or director or writer or so on), akin to the insane Dr Frankenstein, picks up pieces and bits from storytelling elements of yore(no matter how distant or unrelated from feminism they are), stitch them into an unholy abomination, pluck its feathers of what made those elements succeed in the first place and hoists its creation up in the air, screaming “Behold! A feminist!”. It doesn’t necessarily has to be a specific combination of a specific set of eras, but in the end, you have a monstrosity that doesn’t know why its alive and its purpose, unknowingly tosses feminism into the lake and reacts with unbridled anger and fear at any criticism (fire).
Nara, the main character, actually starts promising: She is full of doubts, regrets, and when the Circle attacks, Nara can’t help but do the same rituals as her harassers with some weird deference, showing that even after seven years, she still can’t completely get rid of the past. This could be really good! Sadly, any potential is tossed into the bin after the first chapter, because she devolves into a flip-floppy tool for a storytelling that is scattered and scarce in the first place.
Her ‘Frankenfeminist’ build has the jaded asshole tone of male characters of the 70’s, the ‘I can beat armies without breaking a sweat’ of male action heroes from the 80’s (without the fun cheese), the broody dark self-flagellating tendencies of the edgy 90’s, and the irritating ‘I don’t have to explain shit to anyone’ of the 2000’s. Besides that? She switches as the drama demands. One moment she will claim to her ship that she wants to quit her ways and fight as equals, the other she will demand subservience of other defectors. She will repeatedly say that she doesn't want to be a leader, then take charge out of nowhere. One moment she will admit she did messed up things in the past and not judge, the other she will be jury, judge and executioner.
And since the writers want Nara to be a badass loner, an inspiring figure of optimism and redemption, a broody closed figure and a team player at the same time (while no one can be even remotely close in competence and power as her), this results in everyone being insanely, hilariously incompetent and dumb. I'm talking of "We are in space being chased by psychos, lets try to escape in that space traffic jam" dumb, or "I will bring a heavily armed person into a shady deal with paranoid murderous cultists" dumb. Any attempts of portraying inspiring feminism in this game are, at best, clichéd and disjointed, and at worst hilariously backfire into what you’d see in an anti-feminist comic of the 80’s, where most positions of power in the ‘good side’ are manned by blunt women, and all the men are sniveling cowards or constantly need help, evil, incompetent, or a mix of those. But here, its played straight, unintentionally comedically straight. For example, a female 'inspiring' captain threatens an entire crew of recently liberated shellshocked victims of torture with court-martial if they don’t immediately go back to the frontlines. Because, surprise, people who went through violent torture want to quit. And we’re supposed to feel bad when she is shot and ends in a coma.
And the game trying to say that Nara blowing up a planet wasn't that bad (yes) and trying to make me hate people who confronted her about the families they lost by her hand was so... so hammy that I nearly cried from laughing.
There is a lot more to talk about in this hamfest, but I probably already blew the limits. So I will just say that while the voice directing is awful, the voice actors are actually good and try their best with the material given, and the gameplay is actually quite fun! Its a third person mix of Forsaken and Descent.
So I suggest that you stay away from this, unless you REALLY like to watch stuff like The Room, but even then, just watch on youtube.