I’ve never heard of this game up until now. I was watching a video on obscure titles kwa Atlus that weren’t SMT au Persona and one game that caught my attention was this strange little game called Baroque. Released originally for the Sega Saturn in Japan only, it got a remake for the PS2 and Wii, and when Atlus got word of it, they decided to publish the game, since the game was developed kwa Sting, and got it released in North America. And honestly, looking at this game, with a post-apocalyptic setting and all this talk of gods and angels and stuff… Yeah, I can see why Atlus wanted to get in on the action. I’ve been told kwa many that this is also one of the hardest JRPGs of all time. Baby, you’re talking to the guy who beat Lucifer on the first try in SMT Nocturne. I think I can handle it. And yes, I am going to brag about that. I have very little, give me this. So with that said, let us get on with Baroque. Also, I will be playing the Wii version because of the better visuals and plus the first person perspective of the PS2 version just did not excite me.



So the game has wewe play as a nameless boy who wakes up in a world gone to hell. There is very little aliyopewa to wewe from there. Honestly, I don’t know what to make of the story of this game because it’s so vague but all the pieces are sprinkled for wewe through NPC interactions. As wewe approach a tower, wewe are greeted kwa an Archangel that tells wewe to descend the giant tower, then he gives wewe a gun and tells wewe to go kill the god in the tower and leaves. Honestly, I’m not only getting SMT vibes from this game, but also Dark Souls. And that’s a good thing, because I upendo Dark Souls. The way the game will only give wewe a slight description of the story before throwing wewe into the game and letting wewe find the story for yourself is quite bold for a game at the time. Most RPGs were doing they’re best to tell wewe the world, the story, the characters, what size shoe your best friend’s dad had on, doing what they could to keep your attention. But Baroque just throws wewe right in and tells wewe to find it out for yourself kwa going into the Neuron Tower. But let’s talk about the Neuron Tower for a second.
This tower is massive. There are a lot of floors wewe will be exploring and as wewe do, the enemies will get stranger and stranger. I thought the weird samaki creatures were as odd as it would get, but no, as wewe go deeper in, the monsters get zaidi disturbing and deformed in a way that is actually interesting. Some of my vipendwa are the jumping creatures that steal your items, a giant mound of flesh that lunges at you, and these little round creatures with juu hats that look like something out of Nightmare Before Christmas. The bizarre visuals of these creatures can really catch wewe off guard sometimes and can even turn the game into some sort of horror game. wewe also can only get items from either searching every corner of every floor au killing monsters. This game really wants wewe to kill as many monsters as possible, as wewe have both an HP and an AP meter. AP will refill your HP as long as wewe have it, but it will always decrease. wewe can increase your AP kwa killing monsters au eating AP restoring items. But like I said, it is always decreasing. Run out of AP and wewe start losing HP. Run out of HP and wewe die. And this is where the game gets hard for many RPG players. When wewe die in Baroque, wewe lose everything, and I mean everything. All your items, all your weapons and gear, your current level, and your progress in the dungeon. All you’ve got is story progress and that’s it. wewe can save your items kwa throwing them into a storage area, but wewe can only throw one at a time and they are rare to come by, and wewe can only save seven items, so wewe really need to make sure what wewe get is good. Does this create a challenge? Yes. Is it hard… No. Honestly, I find the game too easy. At least in the way the game intends. Fighting enemies, getting the proper gear, and staying alive is made easy thanks to the fact that enemies are abundant and wewe can always get good to decent stuff early on in the dungeon. As long as wewe are hoarding stuff like a mad man, wewe can always expect to stay alive in this game. No, there are other ways this game becomes a pain in the ass, which we will get to now.
Yeah, as much as I upendo the vague story, the art direction, and the banging soundtrack kwa Masaharu Iwata and even some of the dungeon crawling, this game has a massive flaw with tedium. It’s such a problem that it kinda prevents me from wanting to play the game for a long time. One problem is this game's desire for one button combat. It’s not terrible, aliyopewa the game, but if wewe play this game for long periods of time (Like me), it will burn wewe out after a while. Another thing is while I do upendo the vague story telling, what I don’t find fond is the vague gameplay mechanics on how wewe progress alisema story. In the Neuron Tower, there are a lot of NPCs to come across, a girl near a fountain, a nurse, some little angels, and many more. This requires going into the dungeon at times to collect one item au talk to one NPC and then possibly die, au do a vague task like giving an NPC a gem au some shit so they can bury themselves au give an NPC a gun who will flat out refuse to take the item and forcing wewe to die again. It’s really annoying how little the game tells wewe and expects wewe to just go through with the tower. And wewe have to do these vague tasks au wewe will reach the bottom of the tower but be sent back to the start. And going back and forth from the very start of the dungeon starts to get tedious, especially with the similar level design. This isn’t hard at all, this is just obnoxious. But wewe wanna know what my inayopendelewa part of the tedium is? There is no way back to a awali floor. The game has frequent saving, so that’s fine, but if wewe save over that and need to go back, tough shit. wewe gotta go up a few zaidi floors, stash an item wewe were carrying so wewe don’t lose it, die, get the item in the overworld, and run all the way back to where wewe were in the dungeon, which can take an saa to get back to. This game is just a constant stream of tedious gameplay and I don’t find myself enjoying the game as a result. All the fun parts of the game that there is is ruined thanks to this stream of backtracking.
Thankfully, unlike say Yanya Caballista au Drakengard, my prayers have been answered with Baroque. Whenever I talk about those other games, I always say that they should exist as something other than a video game. Baroque got the message across that the game is not exactly fun to play, so it was turned into a manga kwa Shinshuu Ueda. Now I have not read the manga and the art style for it certainly doesn’t have a unique style to it, but I have heard that it is very much vague like the game and sticks to the chanzo material, so that’s pretty neat. Also, while doing research, I was shocked to see just how maarufu Baroque was in Japan, with a prequel visual novel game that was on Playstation 1 and recently released for iOS and Android, a shoot em up spin off and a fucking typing game. Seriously, this game has a typing spin-off game. Yeah, let’s kill god with the power of our keyboard. Mavis Beacon was the true rival to god!
So that is Baroque, an interesting game, which gets a 10 outta 10 at everything… except the gameplay. Yeah, if I ever intend to experience the world of Baroque again, it will probably be from the manga au maybe with a friend to endure this with me, because that gameplay does not do it for me. With that said, I’m giving this game the award of Endurance Test. With all the great stuff in this game, I really had to grit my teeth just to experience it, and that should never be something in a game. I upendo everything about Baroque except the gameplay and I really wish it was better. I do want to see if they would try their hand at zaidi to this series in the west, but considering the poor sales in North America, I don’t see that happening. Maybe this is what we’re left with here.