#veedia veeviews 2023

[nihiltism]

as for my first Veedia Veeview! I just finished 999 (DS) and I sure do have opinions on it! so hold on one second as I readmore this because it might be long. warning for 999 spoilers probably.

ok so. i am going to preface that i did not Dislike this game. it was a very neat little thing with pretty good plot weaving (though there are some Shenanigans that leave me confused still), good puzzles and a killer climax/twist that recontextualizes everything. that's the good stuff. i think it was a good solid game. but also i dont think i get the hype? things like this always make me feel like somebodys gonna come from the shadows and rick and morty me like im not smart enough to appreciate it but i. do think i. got it. i just dont. see the hype.

my main, not really issue but Thing Keeping Me From Getting Into The Game was kinda just. how Eh all the characters were. something you should know about me is that i Love characterization based storytelling. i love when every character has a Deal and the plot is weaved around those characters' actions and interactions while In Character. 999, being a game based around Personal Revenge and Saving Somebody You Love, has potential to be character-based. and in some instances it really is. however a Lot of the game feels like the writers planned out the plot, key events, and how characters would affect that plot in turn, before they had decided on who most of their cast actually was. they just had wooden 2x4s in place of the characters for the majority of writing. It happened a Lot where it seemed a character was just, hijacked to infodump occasionally. hijacked to give important information, hijacked to make a smart move that had to be made, etc. they all seem both incredibly smart and incredibly stupid at the same time because of this. they're kind of just. uchikoshi's sock puppets. he asks them questions like "do you know any exposition useful to this puzzle?" and he answers himself in a slightly higher voice while moving the sock puppets mouth. (this especially happened with junpei, where in the safe ending and while going to door 3 he seemed to just. completely break character to make a plot thread happen). even without that, i wont say that characters lack depth but their depth isn't made Important, save for like. santa. i cant even fully argue akane. characters who have Deals are a bit rare and when a character is shown to have a backstory outside of this, like lotus, it is. decided it doesnt matter. i think lotus deserved better in general to be honest. it's one of those games where if I see anybody with a honest to goodness Blorbo from it I kind of tilt my head and ask myself how much you are hallucinating about the character in question.

as for actual like. gameplay whatevers. its fine. none of the puzzles made me want to die save for maybe the block pusher, it was easy enough to speed through early segments on subsequent playthroughs, the art is nice and i really like the animations when they exist. i tend to not have a lot to say about parts i thought were fine and a lot to say about parts that bug me so. For The Big One

I Did Not Go Into This Game Expecting To Get, Not Only Ableism, But Ableism For Something So Hyperspecific I Didn't Even Know There Was A Word For It. Despite Having It.

the way this game handles ace's prosopagnosia is. pathetic. it's like they only understood like 3 words off a wikipedia page about the topic, as well as the fact that it was a mental condition, and thought they understood enough to make it a major plotpoint. i have 3 main annoyances about it in particular.

1: the plot hole. the fact that makes me almost positive they didnt understand the concept. the fact that THE WRITER FORGOT THAT HAIR EXISTS AND OVER HALF THE CAST NOT ONLY HAS IT BUT HAS DISTINCT ANIME HAIR. ooooh my god. its. its so bad.

2: the way that they continually treat prosopagnosia as something agonizing or worth pity. if you have ever had any sort of mental illness you know that people responding "i feel bad for you" in response to you, having it, is a huuuuge yikes. but like. prosopagnosia toes the line of (definitely a disorder but so workaroundable that this is just. A Way People Be.) like how poor eyesight is so rarely seen as a disability nowadays because glasses exist. my friend related it with a better metaphor than me, being that the whole. way its presented is kinda like (the terrible agony of being left-handed). its strange its alienating i wouldnt call it demonizing but i would say its similar to that one time i went to college and somebody said "oh im so sorry to hear that!" after me mentioning in introductions that i was disabled.

3: the fact that ace's motive for Atrocities was his prosopagnosia. like. ok if it was just a Thing He Had and was a good way to pin him down as a killer then thats one thing. however using this, again, Way People Be, as a motive for it all. its. im leaning slightly more to demonizing but more just. Boooo We Hate Your Stupid Ableist Subplot. we hate the fact that this is even considered a villain motive when any normal person with prosopagnosia could easily tell you that they are not so Pained And Agonized by. not being able to tell peoples faces apart. that they would put kids into a death game for psychic powers to fix it. its one of the stupidest and frankly insulting villain motives ive ever seen in a really really well thought out game aside from it. it's paradoxically both Good and Awful writing and I've been told this type of thing is not rare of uchikoshi works.

anyway uhhhh overall. yeah i think its just kind of alright basically. shrugs. it just kind of made me want to replay ghost trick.