08-10-2023, 07:24 PM
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In an age where "indie" in the context of PC gaming means "forever unfinished attempt to simulate an entire perfectly functioning and perfectly pointless virtual medieval world" and "japanese inspired" tends to mean you're about to be exposed to the aesthetic sensibilities of people who despise Japan, 'MY MUNDANE LIFE IS THREATENED BY THE TROPES OF AN RPG" is a breath of fresh air. It's a simple and complete vision that knows what it wants to be, has modest goals, and can actually fulfill them. The game advertises itself as short, this can be a genuine virtue. Certainly not a direction in which many PC games are willing to err anymore.
MMLISTBTTOARPG is made in the 'RPG PAPER MAKER' engine, a quaint system which seems to introduce roughly the same mechanical possibilities as its much older cousin RPGmaker, but lending itself to a far more VN like style of presentation. Perhaps better suited to light multimedia efforts than iterations of pure JRPG genre works. More Persona than Dragon Quest. More Silver Case than Final Fantasy. etc.
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For what is presumably a rather experimental and inexperienced work the game looks fundamentally nice. The basic arrangement of elements is generally pleasing to look at, with a functional sparseness which brings to mind stylish early 3D Japanese games which aimed to be bright and sleek, rather than the more currently in vogue dark and hazy attempts at early photorealism or stylish surreal horror. In addition to the 2D character sprites being of a style which brings to mind Paper Mario, the three dimensional world has a pleasingly simple and distinctly physical origami-like appearance which seems to provide a great sense of tactile depth and dimension for a relatively low investment.
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MMLISTBOTTOARPG is very light and easy to enjoy for what it is, and is perhaps a ray of hope for the future of gaming. Imagine a future of modestly scaled "video game" works in which every element can be said to be justified, built for purpose, and creatively implemented? A future in which "indie" games are actually born from a spirit of independence, more comparable to the doujin works of Japan than the western "indie", which was always more of a pretender movement to the throne than a true and organic manifestation of cottage industry self expression by and for fans of video games for the sake of it.
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Perhaps the strongest thing that can be said for this video game is that it really isn't too much of a video game at all. It's more like an expressive and creative little piece of software. "RPG" is in the name, but rather than another tired iteration of an established form which struggles to justify its own existence it's a personal and obviously self justifying thing which exists as a plain and complete expression of human play and creativity. Rather than a gamer making another video game inspired by video games this could be called a post-videogame piece of multimedia in which video games are another past media form which can inform and influence the future, but is done being repeated for its own sake. Perhaps as the great video game directors loved film, the creators of the next generation of creative software will be fans of the old video games.
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