The creator's previous game, Quod, was a heavily puzzle-focused game influenced by games like Riven and so forth. Only thing was that it played pretty much exactly like any RPG Maker game on here, being a game, well, made on RPG Maker. It was a game that showed someone who had a mind for puzzles, all of which were creative, challenging while being logical. It had its faults, its story was terribly rushed, and maybe some other things I can't remember, but it was a good game overall, and one you should still check out.

With Bunraku, he's stayed within the same general territory - a game derived entirely around challenging puzzles, but the approach is completely different. This time we have a game that plays exactly like his influences, i.e. Myst and Riven. The game is all in a first person perspective, where you navigate through areas screenshot by screenshot. There is no mouse control here so movement is done via the arrow keys and interaction is done on the spot by pulling up a menu and selecting if you'd like to examine, interact, or, the game's true unique element, meditate at any given spot. Meditation is also where you go to save the game (if I have a complaint, it's that there's no option to exit the game except closing it out through windowed mode or F12-ing it; it's not a huge issue, just one that stuck out for me).

The controls are extremely user-friendly. Navigating maps is very smooth and fast. You can go Speedy Gonzales around if you want (though that's obviously not the way you should be playing), and bringing up menus for interaction. The problems with both of these are, when it comes to navigation, you won't have any arrows indicating which way you can go. Even though these are relatively small maps, and are generally easy to navigate, you might find a couple instances where you'll have overlooked a path you didn't know was in the area completely. And the menus, while removing the necessity of pixel-hunting that tends to plague adventure games, can feel slow as you go through submenus and confirming to the game that yes you would like to do so-and-so, but, still, not a big deal. The tedium from doing this will largely come from trying to figure out the game's puzzles, which will inevitably result in you wandering around and getting lost. Both are minor complaints, if at all, they're only really felt from playing the game a long time and not knowing what to do.


Now I'm REALLY lost here, anyone got a map on 'em?

The visuals are one of the game's defining features. All are photographs taken via Google Earth and cleverly assembled as maps to navigate. These consist of three different Buddhist temple grounds located in Japan. As to be expected some of the photography is simply gorgeous, whether it's a small pond by a large trail of trees and other distant buildings (which you sadly cannot explore) or a more wintry landscape, the game is, aesthetically, undeniable. Those hoping for a more ancient Japanese setting will be disappointed by the modern architecture and electronics on display, but Google Earth can only go so far back in time, y'know. If there's a point of contention that people will have with the graphics it's the objects added onto the scenery, out of necessity. The TV sets look very obviously pasted on, and up close you can see the jagged edges on them. And then there are the NPCs, which hearken back to pre-FMV days when photo-realistic characters had to be animated by hand, sometimes with results befitting that of Tom Goes to the Mayor. Mostly the characters just slide around when they move.

Rather than a complaint I actually found this somewhat charming, since as I said it does bring to mind older adventure games and other titles with digitized, hand-animated photographs when full FMV was unfeasible or unavailable, only the game here is obviously sharper looking thanks to the advent of HD graphics and photography that doesn't need to be compressed to hell to be put onto a playable game.

The music is a great accompaniment to your surroundings. Your main soundtrack will be "zen music" of some kind that is actually very lovely-sounding. I presume the nature sounds, a la the birds and other things like windchimes are integrated into the music. There's also a small assortment of electronic and classical (and electronic classical!) that'll play out at certain points. One of these is Gyorgy Ligeti's "Requiem" aka "The Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey." You'll hear this, very appropriately, played out during the ending sequence, and what an ending it is. I'm not sure I understand what happened, and some may find some sense of awe from it, or perhaps frustration as it's not climactic in the traditional sense (fun note: I was the first to download this game here, and all I got was the ending, followed by credits - I was naturally confused and asked about this - it turned out to be a faulty upload, which was swiftly replaced by the game proper; Yep I got to be the fall guy here and have the ending "spoiled" for me right from the beginning before everyone else - you're welcome :P) (another fun note about this improper download - at some point I was able to open up my menu which was like a traditional JRPG/generic RPG Maker menu, which showed I was equipped with a sword, wood shield, and whatnot - bizarre, as there is nothing remotely like this in the actual game).

Now, as to what you'll actually be doing in this game... well your guess is as good as the protagonist's. Rather than the story being a cliched case of simple amnesia, it is more a spirit quest. Amnesia of the spirit, than of the mind, perhaps you could say. The cyclic nature of death and rebirth. And so on. Yes, very much unlike Quod, which, although it did have an amnesia-based set-up, was story-driven. Here, there is no real plot to be had, it's more about its concepts applied to its setting acted out by someone without identity (that being the point I presume, since Buddhism is essentially about removing oneself from the material and the individual - I am hardly an expert so don't quote me on that). The most identity you'll get is from your reflection in the many glass windows and mirrors that come up. All descriptions emphasize how well-kempt your pointed beard is. You also display the same stone-cold look of dead seriousness on your face at all times, which helps to emphasize some character here, as someone determined to understand everything he seeks to find out about where he is, what he's been sent here to do, and how to accomplish this.


Too sexy for nirvana.

Your job is to explore and examine your surroundings. They may provide helpful information, sometimes they might lead you to overthink things, as these types of games tend to do. As you move around you might notice some metallic objects nailed to the walls consisting of three colored bulbs with arrows pointing at certain bulbs, all of them with different patterns of arrows. They will usually be sitting by a safe, a door, or button of some kind, all of which will either be locked or inoperable. What the hell are these things? Examining them doesn't help much except give you a closer look at them. You're unable to interact with them and the doors and safes being locked and buttons doing nothing the only thing you understand at this point is that these are obvious puzzles that will need figuring out later.

And, the craziest aspect in the game by far...


As you can see by all the empty chairs, business hasn't been so good since mannequin woman of doom showed up just to sit there and forebodingly stare at people trying to have a cup of tea in peace. Maybe they ought to employ the services of divekick stone lady to the right there to, 'hem, straighten things out...

Well now I'm sufficiently creeped out. But, no time to dwell on such things, moving on...



Oh, wonderful, finally, another visitor in this fine establishment! Maybe he can help me out with some questions I have...



I'm sorry, Pal-who? I'm afraid I don't know the answer your que-wait a minute here is that a gun you're pointing at m-



oh





That's right, some kind of monk assassin just asked you, at gun point what year a certain author wrote a certain work (and don't even bother trying to Google it... neither the author nor this work even exist), and your failure in knowing the answer resulted in you getting SHOT IN THE FACE. At this point in the game you obviously won't know the answer... or you can give it your best shot and enter in a five-digit number and hope that you get the correct one by accident (good luck with that). After this you'll then wake up in a completely different area entirely.

After exploring for a bit eventually you meet another of these guys...



Excuse me, did you just ask me the same question as before? I says I don't kn- well actually let me take a stab at this before you take yours at me. *rubs hands together* *clears throat*



Hey, it's a year, one that's as good as any!



I guess good luck wasn't on my side this time.




Ow. That's going to leave a mess behind.

Now you'll wake up in the third and final area, the snowy landscape, and the largest area in the game. A change of looks, of seasons, always good, let's look around some.



Ah, very lovely! The vibrant colors, elegant design, the craftsmanship of every aspect... this indeed is a lovely game to look at for more reasons than just the wilderness. Now time to move along and go up the stai-



AHHH! Jesus Christing Fu-



Hm?



What? You again? Still with this Paul fellow and his book on post-modern half-diameters or something? Why do you care? And even more in my face about it? Would you mind stepping a couple feet back please? Personal space and everything. Plus your breath, gotta do something about that. And, what's this? You couldn't even get a different weapon? Gun, katana... gun. You disappoint me. Try playing more Shadow Warrior. You just might find some inspiration for future armaments there.

*sigh* Alright. You know what, I'm getting tired of this. You want an answer? The real answer? The ultimate truth to satisfy your stupid question?



There! How'd you like them apples? A hahaha!



...



I figured it wouldn't be...


Trying to time my PrtScr key to capture the muzzle flash was probably as much a challenge as any of the game's individual puzzles. The things I do for all 0.4 of you people out there who even care to read my ramblings.

Death the third time in a row, as it turns out, isn't any less red.

Alright, so now what? Am I going to be sent back to restart this whole gig from the beginning or wha-



Ningyo eh? I think it's more accurate to say they're all more interested in murdering me than "retrieving my spirit" or whatever euphemism you want to use but ok. So tell me what's next after this. Will my soul be recycled and be reborn, to further my journey toward spiritual awar-



Oh, so that's how it is, game. That's how this is gonna be played. Well I'm telling you this - I'm going to be PREPARED this time! I got a few weapons of my own up my sleeve that'll TOTALLY catch you off guard. Like, um...




Well, hey, if you can get a hook caught inside their mouths it'll hurt a lot! Plus this worked out pretty well for Warren Beatty in The Parallax View, so...

Alright, seriously now, there's no actual fighting these guys, this isn't that kind of game. Once you get shot by that last guy, it's curtains, it's Game Over for you.

These guys are called the ningyo, which, as explained in a book found in the game, of the same title, are "puppetmasters" of sorts, of which there are, whaddya know, three who perform an act at once. The lead controls the head and right arm, another the legs and feet, and another the left arm. This would lead for some to conclude that you, in fact, are the puppet in this game, but whatever for? And thus leads to other interesting things you'll find in the game.

One thing you'll find throughout the game is a "Sharp Nintendo TV." This is an actual TV that was a Japan-only release, a collaboration between Sharp and Nintendo, obviously, to make a TV with a built-in Famicom. Looking at it, you'll notice a visual of your corpse lying in a pool of blood from the previous area, as though seen from a hidden security camera (regarding this - first, as you might notice, the "foreboding" mannequin woman appears in every area where a ningyo is within the immediate vicinity - second, and most relevantly, you may or may not notice the video tapes are all from the mannequin woman's perspective - it must be sheer coincidence or sheer brazenness/stupidity on the ningyos' part to commit murder right in front of an active security camera).


"The man here was found shot dead in the Buddhist temple this morning" "Well it looks like...it's time we *shades* meditate on the crime scene." *YEEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHH!*

You can rewind, fast-forward, and play. I didn't notice any VCRs nearby so the Famicom must've been capable of a lot more than I gave it credit for (do we have any actual security camera footage out there caught on Famicom carts? I'd love to see those)(EDIT: Actually I see now that rewind, fast-forward and play buttons were added on the TVs in the game, but the actual TV doesn't have those; what looks like a slot for VHS taps is actually for ROM cassettes). Rewinding and hitting play will allow you to play out the previous area again. What ever for? Just to get killed again? Well, essentially, yes. Plus, any items you collected in the next area you don't carry back in the previous area (though inventory hunting is far from the game's main prerogative - there in fact may be only a couple times at most where you'll actually be obtaining items that aren't scrolls). But what you DO carry over is "knowledge." This leads to the next interesting element of the game.

If you meditate, you'll notice the options for breathing, visualizing, and chanting. At the beginning you won't have anything for visualizations or chants, so what's that about? Well, there's basically your first goal - you must find all the visualizations, which are sacred symbols of some kind, there are in the game, carved or drawn out on various things, as well as all the scrolls, which contain the chants (the well-known "om" being among them). The chanting is also the only instance of any kind of voice acting in the game (if this was generated by voice acting), so nobody as chatty as Robot from Quod (which I found out later, from the game's developer was all voiced by a word-generating program anyway). Meditations, chant scrolls, visualizations, scary-looking monks who take their trivia games deadly seriously, trying and retrying areas via television sets with rewind, fast forward and play functions, and some business about colored bulbs everywhere with arrows. What is this madness? Madness it is indeed, but I've rarely seen such ingenuity in a game's puzzle design, especially not on here. There are basically two stages of solving the game: first you're probably wondering what those bulbous plaques even mean. This where I spent the majority of the game trying to figure out. It took a while, a LONG while, but little by little, bit by bit, I was starting to see patterns, connections, and process of elimination (the first bulbed item you unlock is an easy one - how did you unlock it? That's what I went to try and figure out, and one thing led to another...), and once you know what it all means, you essentially have figured out the entire game... supposing you actually read the material provided in the game that is.

Yes, there are people, objects and books to look at that aren't there just for shits 'n' giggles, they are there for a very good reason. I recommend looking at them. Though as in Quod with the text vying against the concept of robotic consciousness, "Chinese Room," this game here also has its own somewhat-gratuitous-and-very-long-but-nonetheless-interesting-text-that-gives-the-setting-some-extra-flesh in the form of a work of Aleister Crowley (he's the guy that you can thank for everyone who spells "magick" with a k). Here he writes on some highly interesting thoughts about religion, focusing his attention here on Buddhism (but of course), comparing it to the Abrahamic faiths and speaking of it favorably compared to those, and then goes extensively on a similar but seemingly different take on the "breath, visualization and chant" concepts emphasized throughout the game. Particularly his bits on the chaos of the human mind are of interest and I felt in Quod the text there felt like an addition trying to raise a basic story and a basic take on a large subject up to a level it never really reached, here it feels more appropriate. Of course it isn't even necessary to read, despite being the largest piece of text in the game located in an isolated area with nothing but that book to interact with, which is why it can be argued its addition is gratuitous, but the game tackles so many concepts I still haven't quite wrapped my head around or quite understood, it's a game where, if there is a story, you have to really look for it, just as you do the puzzles, so there are many things in each text that is relevant in some way to the environment, story and of course the ultimatum of the game that it fits in a nice bit more snugly than did the Chinese Room text in Quod did.

And that's another thing about the story. As I said you may come away from it feeling frustrated and it being anticlimactic (I guess the fact that I knew what the ending was beforehand regardless of lack of context helped me think the game over as I played it) since there are many strange things and questions you might have that remain unanswered. But rather than being plot holes or unfinished or rushed storytelling I feel this was both intentional and also befitting the nature of the game. Everything about the game lends itself a mysterious nature. Even the things that are "answered" may still lead to more questions yet. Among the things that you might have to interpret yourself, if not simply read more of the texts in the game, you may wonder Questions you're left to figure out for yourself, or maybe questions that were never meant to be answered.

One thing that some people might find off-putting is how "jargony" the game is. It does a pretty good job at explaining what you need to know, but for those not as well-versed in Buddhism and Japanese culture as the creator seems to be some may find the game hard to follow along. Perhaps the questions above could be answered by personal research into the subject, as well as filling in the cryptic nature of the game, but it's not a serious flaw, personally, if it even is a flaw.

I also want to say: despite the mostly zen approach to gameplay, which it mostly is, the game can also be surprisingly dark/uneasy at times. Well, if the fact that there are people murdering you for not getting a question correct didn't give you that impression, there's the mannequin women staring at you that give you a sense of "foreboding" which prohibits you from approaching, there's an entirely dark area in the back of one of the temples to explore that's filled with nothing but mannequins and the sounds of breathing (your own, I hope?), and a kind of wood gate which is too dark to see through but it mentions that you "saw something move." Probably that ningyo bastard, but still. Not to mention Plus, I mean, you're given kind of a warning in the game's image gallery...



I don't know much about Japanese culture or Buddhism but I would wager to guess those masks don't represent happy times. Just sayin'.

So my thoughts are, it is very much "zen" gaming but not in the way you're probably expecting. A game like, say, Nifflas' Knytt, is what I personally consider "zen" gaming in the simplified sense, that it provides pure relaxation and relief of stress, where I can just explore and admire the scenery from beginning to end. And now that I pretty much know the games in and out, Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee and Abe's Exoddus have become this way too. Here though, while it does indeed provide plenty of beautiful scenery to mull over with relaxing music to go with it, it is a game about self-realization, that this is but a prelude to the perfect state of "zen" in the more serious sense. It is telling you that through the cyclic nature of death and rebirth (which is a label applied to many old adventure games actually, ha ha, but probably not in that sense, and not in a complimentary fashion), facing the challenges that hide around you and through meditation and exploring deep to the center of your mind, can you achieve this. "Zen" is as much, if not more, the goal of the game, as the nature of the game itself. Not a game for everyone, but those who find the works of Cyan overly difficult may have an easier time with this one, if only because it is a shorter game with a more straightforward interface and less alien gadgetry to have to tinker with.