I’m back to muse more about Paradise Mascot Agency (Kaizen Game Works) and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive). In the last post, I was focused on the stories of each game and how I felt about them.
Oh, by the way, I bought a Pinky plushie. I was so enamored by her, I wanted to see if there was a plushie of her. I didn’t expect to find one, but much to my surprise, I saw this. I also bought the fun-in-the-sun accessory pack, so I can dress her up for the summer.
The story in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is almost universally critically acclaimed. I have heard people call it a masterpiece and gush about how evocative it is. I can understand why people thinkt it’s terrific, but it left me cold. By the end of the second act, I was privately calling it hot trash. The third act did nothing to change my mind. In fact, it made me just dislike the story even more.
It’s not something I talk about much because I don’t want to yuck other people’s yum, nor do I want to get into it. I’m comfortable with my opinion, but it’s not somethnig I feel the need to defend. If other people were moved by it, more power to them. It just felt very pompous and overblown to me, not to mention needlessly convoluted and not as smart as it thought it was.
I have been thinking why I am more forgiving of the story in Promise Mascot Agency, and it comes down to why I don’t like movies because they’re not realistic, and yet, I love musicals–which are anything but.
When Moulin Rouge came out, I loved the soundtrack. LOVED it. I saw the movie, and recommended it to my bestie, K. She just could not get over how I, someone who griped about the slightest non-realistic thing in a movie could be so enthusiastic about musicals. I told her it was because they weren’t trying to be realistic so I didn’t have to pretend they were or try to make them realistic in my brain. Plus, the showtunes were always bangers.
The story in Promise Mascot Agency is charming and quirky. The characters are seriously flawed in a way they aren’t in Clair Obscur: Expediiton 33. In the latter, the characters in the party are all noble to a certain extent. Some have questionable motives, yes, but overall, they are definitely the Heroes of the story. And the villains are similarly drawn. The fact that all the voice actors are stellar really papered over the problems with the characters.
Let me put it this way. The characters in this game are how Hollywood portray outsiders. A rag-tag band of really good-looking and uber-competent people who come together to get shit done. They do it easily and without a hitch because each on their own can kick all kinds of ass. That’s not to say they don’t make a powerful group or that they don’t have chemistry. They do and they most definitely do. I liked every member of the group, more or less.
But.
However.
There was little doubt that they would pull together and work like a machine. This is a Marvel movie, writ large.
Promise Mascot Agency, on the other hand, is filled with true outsiders. People that are on the fringe of society and overlooked/ignored/reviled. They are ugly and gross, and some of them start out as creepy. Not all of them or even the majority of them, but many of them–the mascots, I mean. They’re broken-down, dispirited, not-the-mentally-healthiest, and many of them have given up on life. They have no purpose, and they’re desparate to do something that will give their lives meaning.
The humans are mostly good-looking, yes. But, they are all broken in different ways as well. These are my people, and I want the very best for each one of them. Yes, they are drawn in a cartoon fashion, but they are more real to me than the hyperrealistic cast of Clair Obcur: Expedition 33.
It’s amazing to me because in PMA, they are cartoons, and the language is Japanese. The whole thing is in Japanese with English subtitles. With Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, it’s in English (though it can be in French if you prefer). The acting in the latter game is top notch and really carries the characters and the story. In the former, I can’t judge that because I don’t know Japanese. But the emotion carries through, regardless.
By the end of the game, I would have done anything for any one of my mascots. And for all the NPCs. In Clair Obscur, it was much more constrained. I carried deeply about my party members, but that was it. When it came time to make the final choice, I did not hesitate. There was only one reason I would have chosen the choice I did not make, but I was with the second choice all the way through the game.
That’s something that has been a robust debate about CO:E33: the ending. I’m not going to discuss it here because it’s a massive spoiler, but I was not pleased with having to make a choice. Or rather, the choice I was forced to make. It felt very…binary and designed to shock. I mean, it made sense within the framing of the game, but I felt that the game was backwards-engineered for that moment.
In fact, that’s one of my biggest complaints about the game in general. Everything feels as if it were engineered to hit a couple of the big moments, storywise. And, again, this is something every writer does, but usually it’s done so it’s not noticeable to the reader/player.
I had an ex who had a phrase, “moving your face to meet my fist”. He used it to describe situations in movies that were done in a mad way in order to reach the end result the director wanted. This is how I felt for most of the game in CO: E33 starting with the end of Act 2.
When it comes to PMA, I don’t have that same feeling. I don’t feel manipulated because the story is clearer. Or rather, it’s convoluted in a way that is more understandable as to why it’s convoluted. And, as I said before, I am not as hard on this game because of the campiness and the tongue planetd firmly in a cheek.
Gameplay-wise, I appreciate that there is no* combat in PMA. I know the combat was the point in CO:E33, but it never clicked with me. By the third act, I was perfecting a build based on one of my characters who could do 50,000,000 points of damage by the time I was done building (had to look it up online, of course).
I one-shot all the end-game optional bosses (who are rock-hard) because my patience was gone and the attacks were ridiculous. Some people in the Discord were bemoaning the fact that they were too overpowered by the time they reached the final boss of the storyline, but I was happy to obliterate them as quickly as possible.
It’s interesting that most of the games I’ve played and finished this year have left me unhappy with the ending for different reasons. That includes PMA, but it was much more forgiveable in this game.
This is the first day in a week-and-a-half that I have not played PMA. I miss the crew already.
*There is some, but it’s negligible and doesn’t really make a difference in the grand scheme of things.