Angels of Death

Mar

2019

Angels of Death

For the Love of Kami-Sama

The Japanese entertainment industry is second only to the porn industry in how well it caters to niche audiences. There are hack-n-slash video games with as many boobs as there are enemies. A few too many anime series involve ongoing brother-sister sexual tension because that’s healthy. Even gore finds a way into hentai to create the nastiest Reese’s peanut butter cup out there. There’s just something for everyone. I do recognize that all of these “niche” examples relate to sexual themes, but I started with a reference to the porn industry, and it’s hard to get porn out of your head once it’s in there.

Westerners who enjoy Japanese media already belong to a niche audience, and their tastes in anime/manga/video games further divide the fan base. Thus, when you have a “Japanese horror adventure” like Angels of Death, you wonder who wants this catering service. Because Angels of Death has its own anime, it must have a target audience. Perhaps as a freeware title, the game was just promising enough to stand out from the garbage. On the eShop of paid content, it’s just another piece of trash.

What is it?

Angels of Death does little to separate itself from a book or light novel. You can walk, run, and interact with your environment, but the game’s linear path allows for no exploration. Your main task is to move from dialogue sequence to dialogue sequence. Puzzles do occur, but because Angels of Death fears gameplay, it will tell you immediately how to solve them. You can also die sometimes, but death is most often avoided by simply running forward.

In the absence of gameplay, the game focuses on its story which follows 13-year-old Rachel “Ray” Gardner as she suffers from “Convenient Amnesia.” She finds herself in an unfamiliar building, tasked with ascending six floors to escape her strange situation. However, a murderous “floor master” (not be mistaken with the more frightening Wallmaster or ceiling fan) lurks on each level. Ray quickly partners with Zack Foster—the bloodthirsty but brainless floor master of B6—to overcome all others floors so that Zack can escape and kill her.

Yep, she wants to avoid being murdered so she can later be murdered by Zack. “Instantaneous Stockholm Syndrome” is a common symptom of “Convenient Amnesia,” and craving one’s own murder is simply a later side effect.

To give some background, Hoshikuzu KRNKRN created the game in RPG Maker and released it episodically for free. Its popularity then led to a manga and anime adaptation along with novels, prequels, and other offshoots. It’s supposedly a big thing, like Pogs or fidget spinners. Incidentally, Angels of Death’s true mystery challenges us to look outside the game, to understand how the hell it gained such a massive fan base in the first place.

What’s good?

Zack’s character becomes endearing towards the final third of the story. In many respects, Zack embodies the clichéd brooding bad guy who spits on social norms but ultimately reveals his tender soul to his true love. If that makes your heart flutter, you may be an angsty teenager. That said, Zack eventually becomes a tragic, likable figure in spite of the anime archetypes. He is profoundly stupid, not knowing how to read, properly care for his burned body, or eat healthily. He is traumatized, a small boy who never grew up and still cowers from fire. Despite all this, he yearns for normalcy. The rest of his personality may be written by a foul-mouthed fanfic writer, but he at least has some level of depth.
The music can be pretty good, providing a level of atmosphere. Some songs act like acid on the ears—like the wannabe hard rock cacophony which is Zack’s “freakout song”—but generally, the soundtrack can be pleasant, unlike the game’s copy-pasted environments.

What’s bad?

The characters are wholly unoriginal. There’s the mysterious protagonist who is less innocent than she appears. There’s the obsessive lunatic who can soak up bullets and knives like immortal gelatin, at least until the final scene. You also have your ominous mastermind who passed Philosophy 101 but flunked Ethics 101. These characters are so boring and familiar they feel like family, the kind of family you avoid unless it’s Thanksgiving.
The game moves so exhaustingly slowly. The avalanche of dialogue fits the genre but is still suffocating, especially because the characters repeat themselves constantly. Add lethargic animation, random bits of slowdown, and overdramatic scenes, and you, too, will beckon the angel of death to come hither and end your suffering.
The translator seemed to know how to translate but not how to write. The translator seems a bit British, which naturally offends my American sensibilities, but typos and strange creative choices truly drag on the story. Unless KRNKRN struggled to write without a dictionary of clichés, the English translation botches the dialogue by including inconsistent dialects, thesaurus diarrhea, and an overreliance on naughty words.
Worst of all, Angels of Death is a horror game that isn’t horrific. You don’t need great graphics and gore to scare people. Fear can come from suspenseful scenes, an eerie atmosphere, off-screen boogeymen, and grotesque imagery. Angels of Death had none of this. I knew Ray and Zack would not die, so I wasn’t scared for their safety. The game heavily relied on “bad-for-no-reason” villains, so they came off as melodramatic rather than menacing. When sentient vomit is the most unsettling thing in the game, the whole thing feels like a creepypasta written by an edgy otaku.

What’s the verdict?

At this point, I’ve talked so much about this stupid game that I’m getting nauseous. Like its main character, it’s lifeless, dull, and overly fixated on religious themes. The anime adaptation at least feels a little more dynamic and has a better translation, but it still can’t produce the scares or any long-term enjoyment. Unless you live, breathe, and barf Japanese entertainment, Angels of Death will bore you to death, which very well may be preferable over finishing the game.

Arbitrary Statistics:

Score: 4.5
Time Played: Over 5 hours
Number of Players: 1
Games Like It on Switch: The Count Lucanor, Little Nightmares

Scoring Policy

Jan

2019

Solomon Plays Angels of Death – Episode 14 (The Critique)

Burned to Death but Still Alive

Four months in the making, and I’m finally finished with Angels of Death. I’d say it’s been fun, but that be a lie, and I only lie about my weight and generally everything else. I could also call it a learning experience, but I’d be repeating myself, and I only repeat myself when I lie. Let’s just acknowledge that I made it through with my sanity and a little bit of motivation.

I don’t think I’ll make another “Let’s Play” series, at least for a while. With the 14 videos made for this Angels of Death series, I’ve collected a little under 50 views total, and 75% of those are likely my views. My videos do not typically garner much attention, but with GoNNER and Angels of Death, not even my family and friends were willing to give them a gander.

Nope, it’s time to move on. I experimented with a new concept with this video, and I think I might roll with it in the future. For those of you who only read the video journal and don’t see the video (do you exist?), I pretended to know how to make Angels of Death better. First and foremost, I am a critic on this website, and the more I can complain and ridicule, the more my ego grows and lifts me up to new heights. As such, it’s logical for me to act like I know more than video game creators. I don’t quite know what game I’ll critique first, but my current freedom to do whatever I please certainly has me feeling calmer.

I haven’t said this in a while, but if you have your own critiques, send them my way. I’m onto the next stage of my YouTube career.

Jan

2019

Solomon Plays Angels of Death – Episode 13 (Therapy)

20/20 Criticism

Oh, what fools we once were. At 18, we see ourselves as adults and look back at how childish we were as freshman, middle schoolers, and little kids. At 25, we laugh at our 18-year-old selves, knowing that we were still very much a kid then. At 40, we come to recognize what adulthood truly means and how immature we were in our 20s. At 75, we recall everything, seeing how we steadily grew over time. At 90, most of us are dead.

I’ve been on this train of thought before in this journal entries. In one year, I’ve repeatedly looked back on past videos, lampooned how little I’d known, and assumed I was leagues better. Even right this second, this analysis implies I have greater awareness than my past selves. I imagine this will be an ongoing cycle, and I’m okay with that. More than anything, it means I’m improving.

I now try to open my videos more creatively. I’ve learned some of the stereotypes of amateur streamers, and I have worked to remove those clichés from my own videos. I’ve practiced swallowing my burps and suppressing my hiccups. My microphone is leagues better; the Elgato software is less fussy; and I even have some rudimentary video editing skills. Perhaps most importantly, I now recognize that not all games can be transformed into entertaining content.

I’ve narrated my last video for this Angels of Death saga, which will be posted next week. We’ll talk about future plans in that video, so today, I’ll be happy to acknowledge my progress at this exact point in time. I’ll see you in the future as a new Solomon.

Jan

2019

Solomon Plays Angels of Death – Episode 12 (Rachel Rising)

A Quick Overview

I’m on a brief kick, not to be confused with a panty kick. My Minit review contains fewer than 500 words. I delivered a short commentary for this video. The third repetition comes here.

Brevity distills my journal entry into its core parts: an insight to begin, some commentary on my video, and an absurd simile. Insight: Today, I recognize how using fewer words can create a larger message. Commentary: My video is not good, but it’s progress. Simile: It’s like a slug, inching forward ever slowly. It leaves a trail of slime behind to mark its progress as it steadily pursues its dream to become a spider. It does not know it cannot become a spider, and it has even less capacity to understand that spiders do not experience metamorphosis. Without this intelligence, its motivation and gumption cannot be diminished. It weathers downpours, menacing raccoons, income taxes, and other bugs. It pushes forward with an urgency. It must not look back. Such hesitation would lead to second thoughts and self-doubt, rendering him an immobile pillar of salt like Lot’s wife. It knows nothing of the Bible, but its instincts make it fear salt, much like the dog fears the postman. The dog sees a threat posed by the stranger. The man may smile, but the dog only internalizes the bare teeth, a show of aggression in the animal kingdom. The man may call out in a sing-song voice, mimicking the soothing sounds of the dog’s owner. To hear a stranger parrot and sully the owner’s ever-loving kindness only serves to enrage the dog further. However, even the dog falters. Against treats and goodies, the dog’s resolve weakens as it weighs the danger with the reward. Food sometimes usurps the owner because food is life whereas the owner is shelter. Both are necessary on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but the animal’s limited mental faculties cannot stave off temptation. The treat is immediate; shelter is abstract, only tangible when without. Thus, the dog gingerly accepts the treat almost as a peace treaty. The postman survives this time, but the growing guilt in the dog’s mind will return it to its feral, protective state. This feral nature exists in all of us: the slug, the dog, the postman, even the spider who knows it is a spider and does not yearn to be a slug. Calm only comes to those who suppress this natural urge, but what a task that is, much like writing a succinct journal article.

Dec

2018

Solomon Plays Angels of Death – Episode 11 (Monster)

It’s a Monster Mash

The word, “monster,” is a strange one. We could dive into the original meaning of the word, noting that “monster” was once used to describe a near-perfect being. I could also just send you to the Oxford English Dictionary rather than cover it here. For now, we’ll simply use the term as we know it today, a word that typically describes a frightening, evil creature. Particularly, I’m perplexed by how it is used to describe a person.

We have marked a number of people as monsters: Hitler, Stalin, Himmler, Bundy, Gacy Jr., rapists, pedophiles, and the corrupt. What is the common theme among them? They have harmed others on a morbid level, and they enjoyed doing so on some level. In some cases, these human monsters seem to have no sense of empathy. To avoid calling them monsters outright, we label them as antisocial, sociopathic, and psychopathic. We also love to use these labels for our ex-lovers, estranged parents, and enemies.

Then we get something like Zack in Angels of Death. He fulfills almost all of the characteristics above, yet we’re supposed to like him. We learn a bit about his tragic back story, and this knowledge coupled with his change of heart give us some sort of pass to like him. He’s a “monster,” something he even calls himself. Hell, he’s nothing compared to the Joker of the Batman universe. The villain is the epitome of chaotic evil and also the heartthrob of angsty teenagers. Other fan-favorite monsters include Hannibal Lecter, Darth Vader, Elmo, and Loki. How can these characters be so endearing when they’re as vile as some of our most inhumane humans?

Does the fictional element make them more palatable? Because no one is really harmed, can we get our bloodthirsty kicks from our lovable monsters? Does the audience even consider them “monsters” in the first place? I may be getting ahead of myself; even “real-life villains” like Ted Bundy have had their own fan groups.

This is why “monster” intrigues me. It’s meant to brand bad people, but we have made bedfellows of these creatures under our beds. I don’t tend to delve into these discussion topics in these journals, but this isn’t the first time I’ve pondered what makes a monster and what makes a loved one. If I were to have no empathy, if I were to love hurting others, and if I were to cause harm, what kind of monster would I be?

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