The Caligula Effect 1 & 2 collected thoughts from Twitter
This probably didn't need to be its own post.
I’ve been half writing a longer retrospective on both games but I’m collecting here a bunch of thoughts on them that I’d dumped on Twitter over time. Maybe probably definitely spoilers ahead.
Steam Daily Deal is Caligula Effect, been middle tier on my wishlist for a while
Curator I follow says it was written by the guy who did Persona 1 & 2
Reviews include a bunch of people complaining it's not Persona 3-5
Think I might like it
Really digging Caligula Effect: Overdose, definitely has that Persona feel
Wish someone would make a similar game set in the west and/or that doesn't focus on high schoolers
P2EP is probably thematically my favorite because it shows that same identity dissociation in adulthood
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Yeah those games all draw on the idea of the separation between how others see you and how you see yourself and then usually sets that against some sort of larger context that plays off those ideas
Good stories
Really love Caligula Effect Overdose, been able to keep coming back to it
Kicks up the same imagination the early Persona games did and also tickles the same hipster obscurity itch that they used to
If I could project lead a game I'd make a Caligula Effect sequel set in the US where a spin-off vocaloid called Gamma made a Mobius 2.0 focused on gaming instead of music
oshit just noticed there's a Caligula Effect 2 hot damn
Caligula Effect 2 first impressions:
-It's the exact same setup again? Apparent twist is that everyone seems to be there voluntarily/nobody seems to be in a hurry to escape
-Music seems kinda bland but I'm still in the first area
-Gameplay feels REALLY s l o wfirst party member is a boy who gets defensive about having boy interests and whose catharsis effect has heels, not exactly being subtle here
in Japanese media this trope tends to end with the character embracing their birth gender tho so there's room for subversion
it's so on the nose it'll be a genuine surprise if it's not the case
"wow you're so good at talking to girls"
Glad the causality stuff is there but streamlined
"What if you had 400 social links, with everyone in the world" was a neat idea that didn't survive the execution
Day 2:
-Music continues to be kind of catchy but not something I'd buy the OST for
-Characters continue to be very tropey
-Combat still feels much too slow
-Causality links are starting to be kind of an excessive intermission distractionbut I'm still having fun with it
Music in the third area is kind of a banger
I almost called Sasara's twist but her episode 6 was pretty intense
like oh
oh god
yeah no we're gonna make sure you get outta this one aliveI might need to go back and read through the first game again because I sadly think I've forgotten most of the character stories and I remember several of them being really good
Been warming up to the soundtrack and the gameplay's pace is starting to be less of a problem over time
but goddamn I can't stop thinking about this, it's precisely the kind of thing that's existentially horrifying to me, plus it completely changes the context of the character
Sasara's finale was pretty rough 😭
Gin's resolution was interesting, "I'm not happy being a girl but equally unhappy being a boy, I guess I can just take the parts I like from both" is both novel for a JP game and the most sensible framing of nonbinary I've ever seen ever
Kiriko's story hit close to home for me wrt my current job; part of it is about the stress of being the one everyone relies on, implicitly being valued vs that being kind of unfair vs are you being taken advantage of
Ryuto's story is maybe too Japanese to survive translation, he's all about noblesse oblige but fuckin' hates the normies, you don't really get the option to tell him to either learn to love the average person or fuck off
Came across the Marie connection by accident early on looking through old screenshots from the first game
Looked at the spreadsheet just now and was disappointed to discover Kobato isn't actually a character anywhere in the first game even as a rando NPC
Both games made me kind of realize something about myself:
Having a problem with the Caligula Effect 2 that I finally thought to put to words
The story has become interesting and I want to keep going but it's being dragged down by the gameplay overstaying its welcome
Almost certainly why I stopped the first one before the end too
I stopped Tales of Arise literally at the last boss
Like got to the save point right in front of the last fight, closed the game because I didn't have time to sit through a 3 hour ending
and was like nah I'm good on this one
Again highlighting that I have a strong preference for gameplay over narrative and that even if your narrative is really really really good if your gameplay can't stretch to cover the whole start to finish then it won't matter for me -even if I want it to-
Noticing some weird repeated character patterns:
Dunno if this is intentional but it's weird that they reuse almost the precise plot point from the first Persona where a character named Maria is crippled irl and creates a psychic alternate dimension filled with monsters where her ideal self is one of the protagonists
Haha I remembered there's even a bit where you confront them in a hospital room but I forgot they also ask you questions and if you pick the wrong answer there's a boss fight and then a bad ending
Wait if Marie is a Maki now I'm wondering if everyone just 1 to 1 a character from the first Persona even?
Was like "wait Ryuto is just Nate/Kei, WAIT GIN IS JUST WEARING MARK'S HAT"
The only one who doesn't map cleanly here is Shota, Kobato could go either way as Brown/Brad or Reiji/Chris
Kiriko is a hypercompetent idol = Elly
Niko = Ayase/Alana isn't a perfect fit either but Sasara's probably a better match for Yuki
Caligula Effect 2 ending had kind of a neat twist that sort of didn't dwell on itself long enough IMO, would actually would have appreciated a much longer scene before the boss
Sad we don't get to see much of anything after they're all back in the real world either
Seemed like it was leading up to χ mantling Regret which doesn't happen for no reason (she just magically gets the power to turn Redo off) but you could write it in there without changing anything else about it
This is obviously hamstrung by missable character stories but if this was going to be a proper story there really should have been a part where everyone (who hasn't yet) comes clean about who they are irl too
Like again Sasara's is a giant HOLY SHIT and Gin's would be a big reveal, both are things that everyone should get a chance to react to before getting out
but Shota and Ryuto aren't large deviations from their Redo avatars; Niko's identity could plausibly remain hidden I guess
The scene with Bluffman and MU-kun seems like something was either lost in translation or wasn't fully fleshed out
Felt like kind of a ridiculous cop-out to namedrop Thorn and just have that go nowhere, wasn't even any proper explanation for how Bluffman got his hands on a copy of Mobius either
Ryuto surprisingly gets the most development in the main story, in his character episodes he's struggling with choosing a future
but Doktor pisses him off so badly he's like "okay I'm gonna become a doctor and cure everything out of spite"
Some randoms:
Caligula Effect 2 perfectly capturing the essence of nurse avatars
Heh the one that wants you to use 50 recovery items in battle is a pharmacist that regrets not sneaking drugs to her friend