Dutch Representation

Overwatch's latest hero, Sigma, was revealed recently - along with the fact that he's Dutch. I was rather delighted by this reveal. I haven't played Overwatch much lately, but the team puts a lot of effort and detail into each character and seeing a Dutch character brought to life like this is a remarkable experience. I look forward to seeing all the references to Dutch culture in his voice lines, sprays and skins. And all of this got me thinking about being 'represented' as a Dutch person.

During my childhood years, I consumed a lot of American (and some British) media and noticed that a lot of European countries would come up depending on the stories and setting. Germany, France and Italy were big names that characters would visit or at least refer to - but never really the Netherlands. And when the Netherlands would come up, the depiction would either be insulting (like Austin Powers' Goldmember) or just plain wrong, having the "Dutch" people speak German (like in the Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever). At the time, this irritated me a lot, but I've come to understand that there are simply many factors working against "proper representation" for the Dutch. For one, our country is tiny, smack dab in between of Great Britain, Germany and France and the English name for our language is Dutch, which sounds an awful lot like the Germans' name for German, 'Deutsch.' No events in recent history can set us as easy heroes or villains, either, and the Dutch accent is hard to pin down and imitate - not iconic at all. So rather than getting annoyed at lacking or incorrect representation, I've just come to appreciate the times when we get acknowledged at all.

And to celebrate this occasion, I wanted to have a look at a few random examples of that:

Windmillville

Mario Party 7 has a 'vacation' theme, so the boards are all based around famous locations. For example, the 'Grand Canal' is based on Venice in Italy. But my favorite board is Windmillville, and it's easy to see why.

Windmillville is an idyllic fantasy representation of some Dutch stereotypes. Meadows and tulips (an important Dutch industry), accompanied by windmills (for which we are famous) which also function as banks you invest in (referring to the Dutch's historical financial savvy). Windmillville gets it right by not trying to be accurate, it's just a glorious exaggeration of some clichés made into a Mario Party board.

Age of Empires III

This example relies more on history than the last, but the Dutch are a faction in Ages of Empires III. While the voice lines for the units are a bit stilted and awkward, the faction itself is interesting and well realized, hinging primarily on the Netherlands' history as a financially forward thinking and trading nation by allowing you to build banks, among other things.

Red

This is a minor example, but in Pokémon Black & White (and its sequel), there are a few members of Team Plasma named after colors in various languages. One of the sages is called 'Rood,' which is the Dutch word for red. This is cool, but it would've been even better if it had been Orange (Oranje) - because that's the name of our royal family, and thus considered our national color. Still a neat detail, though!

Red Alert 3

Red Alert 3 is a goofy and downright entertaining RTS. One of its greatest strengths is its all-star cast crazy factions and charming presentation. This all comes to a head when the Empire of the Rising Sun (one of the factions) led by George Takei leads an assault on final allied base in Amsterdam.

source: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpXhAuN6DstHgc5fE6ZaEww

It's not a literal copy of Amsterdam, but the canals are there and the architecture of the civilian buildings is noticeably Dutch. I thought it was a really cool location for the finale of the Empire's campaign.

Nintendo in General

This pertains less to the actual content of games and more to their localizations, but starting with the Wii U Nintendo started translating more of their major games to Dutch.  The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey are both the first major games in their respective franchises that were given a Dutch translation. I recently completed Mario Odyssey, and I really appreciated the translation even if I didn't need it. 

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So, that's it! Just a few examples of how Dutch and the Dutch are represented in videogames. There are Dutch developers, of course, but I specifically wanted to look at how non-Dutch parties handle it.

How about you? Are you from a country or culture that you feel is or isn't properly represented? Please share your experiences down below!

Some Thoughts About HEARTBEAT

Recently I played the adorable indie RPG, HEARTBEAT. This isn't going to be a full-blown review, just some random thoughts about the game.

HEARTBEAT is a traditional turn-based RPG that takes place in a fantasy world inhabited by humans and Mogwai. Mogwai are a huge group of magical creatures, divided into subcategories based on their elemental affinity - a bit like Pokémon that can talk. Certain special humans, called Conjurers, can form special bonds with Mogwai and thus draw power from each other. Conjurers are rare and most towns have a single one to protect them from any threat. In HEARTBEAT, you play as Eve Staccato, the Conjurer assigned to protect a small village, as she ventures further and further from her home and gets wrapped up in a larger conflict.

Gameplay

Gameplay-wise, I don't really have that much to say about HEARTBEAT. It functions very much like any other turn-based RPG, but I will make a note of some of its unique qualities.

- The HEART meter charges up your Limit Break, but it's shared between all characters - as their hearts are all connected. This means all damage dealt and taken to and from all characters charges the meter, but only one character gets to use a Limit Break type attack before the meter depletes again. A shared or combo attack like in Chrono Trigger might've been fun, but I understand why it was resolved the way it was.

- Mogwai have elemental affinities, but humans do not. That means that Eve, your main character, is neither strong nor weak against any element by default - however, when a Mogwai becomes her friend, she will often get a shard of their core, essentially their soul, which will allow you use up a turn to switch to their element and gain its strengths and weaknesses on the fly. This offers some neat strategies, though it's still very simple.

- There are two characters in the game that attack on their own, outside your control, when they join you. One of them, a kind of moth baby that you get to give a name to, stays with you throughout the entire game. The 'moth baby' can transform into a baby version of most friends and foes you encounter and can level each of its forms. It's the only other character besides Eve that you can control the elemental affinity of, adding another layer of strategy.

- In spite of its cute presentation, this game is not recommended for beginners. In battle, information appears at the top screen in rapid succession and disappears just as quickly, and the phrases are often full of icons and abbreviations that you'll have to learn to recognize. I think the interface in battle could've used some work, like a log showing the events of the last few turns. There are plenty of examples of this, but for some reason Heartstone - which is really more a card game than a turn-based RPG - comes to mind.

- The overworld works as expected for any JRPG, but the characters that accompany you each have a unique ability they can apply in the overworld. These are used to solve simple environmental puzzles or reveal secrets. They're usually fine, but puzzles that require precise timing can get a bit annoying. To clarify, when you press on a switch to start a timed event, you may immediately press the button to start running, but because you weren't fully on the tile yet or because the switch was still activating, it doesn't work, costing you valuable time. Enemies are not random encounters but can be seen and (if desired) avoided on the map, which I think is a plus.

Presentation

HEARTBEAT's presentation is one of its main attractions. It features a large cast of expressive, distinctive characters with beautiful sprite portraits.

HEARTBEAT's world is a delight to explore. Vibrant colors, catchy tunes and hundreds of beautiful and detailed sprites are just the tip of the iceberg, and the clean and sharp interface ensures you won't be distracted from it. Each character has a unique design, and most characters come with their own musical theme and a battle variation of said theme. A tremendous amount of effort was put into realizing this world and characters. If I had to say something negative, I guess not all of the music is as memorable - but with as many tracks as the game has, not every single one could be equally iconic.











Story

I'll keep this mostly spoiler free, but as I mentioned at the start, you take on the role of Eve Staccato - a conjurer with the power to form pacts with Mogwai - on a quest that gradually increases in scale. She's accompanied by the Mogwai she made her first pact with, Klein Gremory, a Cat Sith Mogwai with a mysterious background. Eve and Klein are the protagonist and deuteragonist, with other characters coming and going in the story while they remain. Its huge cast is one of HEARTBEAT's strengths, but also one of its weaknesses, as the story cannot focus on a single character and their arc for too long. Characters' conflicts are resolved quickly or relegated to the background while the story continues without them in favor of another character.

MINOR SPOILERS:
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I don't feel I have the authority to give in-depth feedback on a game's story, but I personally have my doubts about the pacing. While I appreciate the way the conflict escalates from something relatively minor to a larger scale over time, it takes a long time for the real "goal" to come into view.

A game that does a similar thing is Chrono Trigger; the initial hook is time travel and the potential dangers of it, but the game shows its hand soon after, revealing that the time travel is a means to prevent the eventual apocalypse. In my opinion, Chrono Trigger's initial hook is more engaging, and I personally prefer that it reveals its ultimate goal a bit earlier. What this amounts to is that HEARTBEAT's story takes a while to get to the point, which means you may lose interest if you're not invested in the characters. Once the story picks up, though, it picks up in a big way.

Like so many of the story based RPG Maker games of yore, HEARTBEAT boasts multiple endings. There's only one true, good ending, with all the other endings ranging from somber and unsatisfying to shockingly grim, especially considering the game's otherwise mild content. I was impressed by the detail in some of the bad endings; most of them feature unique portraits, a fair bit of dialogue and even a unique battle or two. It's a shame so few people will get to see them, though, because the good ending is incredibly easy to get. I feel like the game could've asked a little more of me to get it, but it's preferable to the alternative - the last thing I would've wanted was a bad ending because you failed to talk to character X seven times in a row on two missable occasions (yes, I AM talking to you, Ib).
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Other Thoughts

- One thing I really appreciate about RPGs with a lot of dialogue is that they acknowledge when certain conversations have been had. Say, a character has a long confession to make - then when you speak to them again, all they say is 'Thanks for listening' instead of repeating the same thing again. Unfortunately HEARTBEAT does have a few occasions, which I won't spoil, where a conversation that has value in the context of the story repeats when the character is spoken to again. It's a minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless.

- Some moments that are otherwise well written - like an emotional climax of a character's story - can feel less deserved because of how quickly characters are shuffled in and out of the party. I wonder if this is a fair critique on my part, or if I'm just being too harsh on a game that simply has a lot of characters? Unfortunately, no one I know personally has played the game; maybe I should look up a few playthroughs to get some other perspectives. If you do play it, let me know what you thought!

- The game has a fair bit of humour. It got a few chuckles out of me, but some jokes land better than others. 

Some of the portraits for humorous side characters did get a laugh out of me; the game's visuals are its strong point in more ways than one.

- Because the game is otherwise lighthearted, rare unsettling moments hit hard. A few music tracks and visuals gave me chills.  I'd post them here, but I am still trying to avoid spoilers.

- The vast majority of important characters are female and all playable characters are. This is justified in-universe; a Conjurer needs to be attuned with a Mogwai, which are either 'Yin' or 'Yang' (essentially male or female). Two characters that are not female accompany you at a given point (those are the characters you can't control I mentioned under gameplay), but because they're not "attuned" to you, they can't be instructed and take actions on their own accord though they're still on your side. This idea is neat, but it doesn't play much of a role in the story itself beyond lore. I've always found the idea of having characters on your side that act on their own interesting; Susie from Toby Fox's Deltarune is a great example of a character acting on their own in a way that is less interesting from a gameplay point of view (always attacks the top character in the same way, and enemies are always warned the same way by ACTing) but more interesting from a story point of view.

- You can collect cards of the locations and characters in the game, if you're into that kind of thing. IO definitely didn't spend two hours buying packs (just in-game money, no worries) to get the rare card I wanted.

Conclusion

HEARTBEAT is a competent turn-based RPG that distinguishes itself in some minor ways. Its story is slow and features too many characters for its own good, but the story gets good and the characters are entertaining and well designed. The game's presentation is excellent. If you're into the genre, give it a shot: https://store.steampowered.com/app/984560/HEARTBEAT/

Some Thoughts About 'The Sexy Brutale'

I recently finished indie puzzle game, The Sexy Brutale. The Sexy Brutale is a puzzle game revolving around going back in time and repeating the same few hours to figure out the workings of the mansion and the movements of the guests and staff to prevent the guests from being murdered. I'd like to share my thoughts about the game, good and bad, here.

Presentation

The game immediately makes a good impression. The setpieces are quite impressive and will easily convince you you're walking through a stylish, old-fashioned mansion. The setpieces are so impressive, in fact, that the game took longer than expected to load in certain rooms and showed empty space in the meantime - as the timer kept ticking on. It wasn't a huge issue, but it happened pretty consistently around major area transitions.

The music is also great, featuring many jazzy bangers. Each major section of the mansion has its own music, and the tracks build towards a climax as the preventable death of the guests you're trying to save in that section approaches. The sound effects are fine in general, with my only gripe being that the noise that plays when there is a ghost in the room - the sound of roaring fire followed by a loud cackle - is too loud, and it plays every time. Either making the sound more subtle or only playing it the first time you discover a given ghost would be a way to fix this.

All in all, the presentation is fantastic with only minor nitpicky complaints concerning loading times and a sound effect or two that can get too loud and repetitive.

Gameplay

In many ways, the game feels like a real-time point and click adventure. Your actions mainly consist of walking around, examining objects, picking up items and using items on objects. The looming time limit is the major threat, but you're also not allowed to explore rooms where a living person currently is. If you enter such a room, the person's mask - and everyone in the game wears one - will come alive and chase you down. In this state, nothing in the room can be interacted with, and if the enemy mask touches you for too long, it will drain your health. It's very basic, but that's because it really only exists to keep you out of the room; this forces you to think ahead and take note when people enter certain rooms. Some rooms are just blocked off arbitrarily, however, as recognized by the interact circle being red and the door being on fire - something the game could explain a bit better. My only real gripe with the core gameplay is that the player character, Lafcardio, moves pretty slowly and that some area transitions take too long - for example, if you interact with a ladder or stairway by accident, there's no way to cancel out of the several seconds it'll take to go back and forth. In a bog standard point and click adventure that'd just be a nuisance, but considering you're on a timer that doesn't stop for text boxes or transitions, it's a slightly bigger problem here.

This plays into the key part of The Sexy Brutale's puzzles; it's all about time. Some of the murders can only be prevented by putting the pieces in place long before the unfortunate guest breathes his or her last. Each guest has a schedule, and only by learning it - as well as the staff's movements and their murder method - can you ultimately save them. Every time the clock hits midnight, or when you use your pocket watch, you'll return to the start of the day. You will lose any items you're carrying but knowledge - like keycodes and secret passages - will be preserved so you can get the items back pretty easily.

Every time a guest is saved, you acquire their mask and special power. Some of these are game changers, while most of them barely matter. An example of the former is the Superior Hearing power. By holding a button, you can hear all footsteps and conversations in the rooms around you, which helps you keep tabs on everyone and lets you overhear critical information. Other powers include shattering glass objects and picking locks, but these are only used a few times in the story and are otherwise applied to find optional collectibles. One of the powers allows you to see ghosts, but only when their associated candle is lit. This leads to a strange situation where you need to find the lighter to fully capitalize on this power, and when you do, it stays with you forever in your item menu - completely contrary to all other items except the wristwatch you start with. It's a strange inconsistency and makes me feel like the lighter should've been added as part of the mask when found instead of put in a separate item menu.

In terms of difficulty, the game never gets very hard. Provided you find an area's clock and winding key, you can set it as your spawn point and you can restart the day whenever you want, as often as you want. What can be frustrating, however, is waiting for a specific moment of the day to reoccur - say, you know one of the guests says something important at 3 PM, so you want to skip to that, but unfortunately you can only skip to 4 PM and 8 PM. I don't really understand this limit; if you're at the clock and you inserted its winding key, why can't you skip to whichever time you want? This is not a game breaker, but it will lead to the occasional few minutes of waiting around, which can get especially frustrating if you just barely miss a vital point of information. But once it all comes together, it's very satisfying. The last few puzzles in particular had me smiling from ear to ear when I used all the pieces and information the game had presented throughout and applied them. The game also has a secret ending you can acquire by gathering all the optional collectibles, which is a fun extra for people who enjoy exploring every nook and cranny.

The Sexy Brutale's gameplay holds up pretty well, but is bogged down by some strange inconsistencies. But when it's good, which is most of the time, it is really good.

Story

I don't want to spoil the story for you, so I'll keep this as general as possible. In the Sexy Brutale, you play as Lafcardio, a guest at the hotel-casino the game is named for. He and all the other guests are killed by the staff for unknown reasons, but a mysterious entity revives him and gives him the power to go back in time. His - and by extension your - mission is to use your power to save the other guests and figure out what's going on.

The characters are well-written and have a lot of snark and dark humour to offer, which got a chuckle out of me on several occasions. The murders themselves also vary from mundane - like someone getting shot in the chest - to utterly bizarre, like being eaten by a giant spider. When you save a guest, you're treated to a funny or heartwarming scene between them and Lafcardio before moving on to the next. It's nice to have those moments, especially because the game's tone is pretty grim and cynical overall.

I'll leave you to discover what's really going on at The Sexy Brutale and why the guests are getting murdered, but I will say that the ending has some pretty impressive foreshadowing. If you're like me, you'll have a few moments where things click and you go 'Oh, so that's why' or 'So that's what that meant.'

The Sexy Brutale's story is as dark as it is comedic, but knows when to take a moment for sincere interactions between the characters. It has plenty of twists to offer and I enjoyed it a lot.

Comparisons

I made a conscious effort not the draw the obvious comparisons in the content above, but two obvious examples of games that have some similarities would be Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - two games that also revolve around time-based puzzles. I didn't want to invoke these games in the actual content of the review because, while there are parallels, the games are still so different that it's not really fair to put one in the shadow of the other. A similar situation arrises when comparing Ace Attorney to Danganronpa; those games are closer to each other than any two given random visual novels, but the similarities are still too shallow to call them one of a kind.

With that said, if you were to compare them, The Sexy Brutale falls somewhere in the middle of Majora's Mask and Ghost Trick. Like Ghost Trick, it revolves around interacting with the environment to prevent a murder, but Ghost Trick's puzzles are much more compact (they're usually limited to one room and you always return to 4 minutes before the person's death as opposed to the start of the day like in Brutale). Like Majora's Mask, it spans across a larger amount of time, across multiple environments, and all murders are occurring at about the same time. In the end, though, it's really nothing like either game when it comes to how it plays.

In Conclusion

With an impressive and stylish presentation, compelling story and characters and entertaining puzzle gameplay, The Sexy Brutale is an impressive piece of work. It's held back slightly by some inconsistencies in its design and presentation, but nothing that ruins the game. Give it a try!