Theresia

Far be it from me to say that people who like scaring the living crap out of themselves are crazy. Personally I don’t understand it. After all, there’s plenty of stuff that’s already really scary and they don’t need a video game written about them to make me fear them. For example, bees.

And fuck bees.

But hey, I can understand the need to feel a little scare every now and then. Life is mundane and a little horror goes a long way. That’s why video games like Silent Hill and Fatal Frame have the audiences that they do. But for every innovative horror game that comes out, there’s always seven that figure, “Hey, we don’t actually need to be scary to actually be a horror game!”

All of those games are probably weapons developed by fucking bees.

Today’s game is Theresia. It’s a mystery/horror/adventure-esque game that, in case you couldn’t figure it out, is not scary. Normally I’d start out by telling you what the story is, but I have no idea what the story is-- and I beat the game. Twice, because I had to replay it to talk to you guys about it!

Well, I’m sort of lying. See, I do know what the story is and it is an okay story, but... I mean, I didn't figure out the story from the game. I actually could not figure out the story until I sat down and did some research, and even then I can't say I figured all of it out. Ah, well. Here’s the beginning of the story for you.

You, as a young girl, wake up in a room on a cot. Try as you might, you can remember nothing about yourself or where you are. You must find your way out of this facility and to some other people! All you can really remember is a woman, a beautiful woman, with alabaster white skin, crimson lips, and long dark hair.

Yeah, sounds riveting to me too.

So there’s a lot of stuff that made this game into the crowning achievement of not scary that it is, but there is one major reason why this game flopped the way it did and one major reason why I think it shouldn’t have been made at all.

A reason that isn't bees, though.

The game originally was an episodic cellular phone based game. After all the parts for both of the stories (that’s right, this one game is split into two parts) were finally completed, I guess it turned out pretty popular so Aksys figured they’d make it into a DS game. Not a bad idea, but it was executed pretty badly.

“So who developed this game,” you ask. “Was it Aksys?”

Nope, good guess. Actually the developers are a Japanese company called WorkJam. WorkJam mostly seems to make mobile phone applications for Japanese model phones, but they also have made some pretty good console games. I’m actually a pretty big fan of their work. Now if you do know WorkJam, you probably know them from their console releases, namely the Tantei Jinguji Saburou series-- not to be confused with Tantei Jingūji Saburō, which is Detective Jake Hunter in English (also developed by WorkJam). Anyone into mysteries would love their work. Theresia is, I’m sure, a popular game of theirs. I’m just saying that this adaptation is lacking.

Alright, alright. I’ll stop meandering about the topic here. Of course you want to know about gameplay and all that jazz. Let’s start with the music. It’s terrible. Moving on.

You're supposed to be solving puzzles, but I'm pretty sure that's this game's excuse for why you just... wander through hallways aimlessly. I walk around in my everyday life, Aksys. This game about walking, that's pretty much been handled. I'm going to need more motivation to play this game. You know, like cutting edge graphics and beautiful scenery!

So... the graphics in the game are pretty standard bad 3D. It’s not so awful you have to drop the game and projectile vomit for about twenty minutes before playing again, but it’s also not super immersive. It reminds me of Wolfenstein 3D. You know, the one you played on floppy disks back in-- aw, damn, I just dated myself there. Theresia is grainy at its best and pixelated at its worst. I don’t want to tell you that you should just accept bad 3D on the DS, because... well, the DS does have the capability of making good looking 3D. In this game, you spend almost every moving moment in the midst of grainy 3D, which makes me wonder-- did Aksys just take the 3D from the phone application and put it into the game? The DS has more capability than a phone for 3D rendering, so why would they do that?

See how the left wall is pixelated? Isn't it weird when it's contrasted with the right wall? Then there's the ceiling and floor, which seem grainy to me.

One of the worst aspects of the game is the backdrops when you’re not in the overworld, if you could call it that. It’s not even that the backdrops are bad. The backdrops are actually really good! They’re just super dark and because of the size of the DS’ screens, it’s really, really hard to make out how good they really are. Some of the artwork that went into this game is amazing and I’m upset that there’s so much darkness in the game that you can’t really see how great it really is.

This is one of the brighter images, also the first one you run into in the game. It's good looking, right?

So if you’re anything like me, at this point you’re like, “Well, I need to actually see the phone application to know if they did anything to the graphics, otherwise I guess this is okay.” Well, enjoy this:

So they’re small, sorry. But I can’t download Japanese apps-- and even on my iPhone emulator I can’t really get good screenshot-- so let’s just go with these. The top one is a 3D scene like the first Theresia screenshot in this review and the second is a still screen like the second Theresia screenshot in this review. I know you can’t really tell, but the port to the DS was a downgrade.

Yeah. It’s a downgrade. I don’t get it! To be fair, the 3D probably looks better because my picture is small-- I tried to do a little more research and found out that there’s a lot of 3D screens in the game that look pretty much dead on like their counterparts in the DS version-- but given that we know that the DS has better capability than a phone for 3D, why would Aksys not update the graphics?

Most of the regular artwork is still really beautiful in either adaptation.

The storytelling in this game is so bad it should be put into a museum. Seriously though, what is with this disjointed storytelling in games that can’t utilize it? I promise you, you won’t be able to figure out a single thing in the game on your first playthrough. Or your second, or your third-- if you play that far. So if you don’t know what I mean by disjointed storyline, I’m talking about spreading out a story haphazardly through the game’s environment, usually in such a way that you have to pick up books or notes to determine the "truth". However there is an overarching storyline that gives you the most generic version of the plot ever. This kind of storytelling technique is better in games where the purpose is vague, like an MMO or... you know, a cellphone app. Theresia’s purpose isn’t vague (and it's not a cellphone app). In Theresia, you have two clear objectives: 1) Get out of this weird, half-collapsed facility. 2) Figure out what the heck is going on. This should be easier than taking candy from a baby.

Ah, well. I do know why the story’s so disjointed. It goes back to the episodic gameplay. Previously you could replay pieces of the game. So, for example, say you complete your game and you realize you don’t have all the information in the game. Then you could easily go back to a previous episode and find that information. When you port an episodic game directly to a full game, it’s harder to go back and forth. If the overworld connected you to every area within Theresia, that would be one thing. But this was a direct port, it seems, so instead of working with the entire area within the game, after you pass checkpoints, you can’t move back and forth to find out what you’ve missed. Oh and trust me, you’ll miss something.

“But... uh, you! That’s impossible. I’m the most through adventurer this side of the sun. I’ve never missed anything in any game!”

I don’t believe that, but if you’d like to put it to the test, then welcome to Theresia: The Game That Hates You. I promise you, no other game goes through so much trouble to make sure that you have absolutely no fun playing it at all. Theresia is like the reigning king of skullduggery-- the moment you think, “Oh, there’s no POSSIBLE way this could be booby trapped!” the game’s like, “LAWL, FUCKING BEES!”

Seriously though, fuck bees.

Everything is booby trapped. Books, chairs, those things you hang key rings on, doors, floors, gates, your face, your computer, your mom, your fingers, thinking, breathing, red, blue, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, PSP Vita, Nintendo DS, Captain America-- Okay, so maybe I went off on a little tangent, but if you can dream it, it’s probably booby trapped. You have limited life, so after spending like twenty minutes getting shocked, shot with darts, or lit on fire you’ll probably stop playing the game.

“Boy howdy,” You say, “That sounds awesome!” To which I respond, where are you from, the 1950s? Boy howdy, really? Anyway, this is about as awesome as sticking thumbnails into your eyes. Or chewing through concrete. Or harvesting sweat off of a sweaty person to make a perfume that you have to wear on your very first date with a girl you’ve been pining after since the third grade. So is it awesome? No. No, it is not awesome. It is the opposite of awesome.

How about characters? Are the characters interesting? Nope. Well, yes (in that you do kind of want to learn what happened to them) and no, but for right now, no. The main female is kind of dreary and she gets on my nerves. I understand that she doesn’t know anything, but you’d think someone who knew nothing about anything going on around her would-- oh, I don’t know-- be a little more concerned that she’s alone in a facility where everything is out to kill her and she has no memory of getting there or if she’s being watched. Doesn’t that sound realistic? Prepare to be amazed at how little this girl cares.

She spends most, if not all, of her time speaking in ellipses. Like so: “I went... to the market. … … … … … It was a long trip... … … hampered by the FUCKING BEES” When she’s not speaking in ellipses, she’s talking about blood, the woman in her dreams, or flowers. That’s. It. It’s not compelling story telling, in fact it’s actually quite weak. But she can’t tell you the story, remember? She has no knowledge of anything. That’s actually one of the stronger points of this game-- she is consistent. Sure, her dialogue is stilted and unrealistic, but they made her out to be an amnesiac, and for the duration of the game she is exactly that.

But hey. I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering if I actually like anything about this game (I can sense your thoughts by looking into the screen of my 3DS and chanting ancient ritualistic curses). I guess that’s a valid question. What do I like about this game?

Well, I don’t much like the music or the sound effects, but like I said, I like the static backdrops when they’re bright enough to be seen. There are red bugs that show up halfway through the game that are interesting and they’re accompanied by the only creepy sound effect. I like some of the puzzles, which I barely mentioned in the review because if you reach the puzzles, that probably means you probably just picked up the game after three months of not playing it. The ending is particularly good in my opinion, but again, to play up until that point requires a special type of gamer. Not a nerd... just someone who enjoys waterboarding and eating vomit.

Is this game bad? Well... yeah. Yeah, it kind of is. In fact, can I just say that I feel cheated out of my money for buying it? The strange thing is that I can see how it would work in episodes-- it would have been better to keep it as an episodic game rather than doing what Aksys did. As an episodic game, I think I might’ve enjoyed this a lot more. It probably would’ve made more sense. The booby traps wouldn’t have bothered me less, but at least I could reach the end of a part and felt like I accomplished something.

I guess in the end it has to be up to you. Do you find it interesting based on what I've said? Are you that waterboarding vomit eater who's been waiting for a game to show up and give you all of the fun with none of the mess? Then, surprise, Aksys literally only thought about you when they made this game. That's a pretty small demographic you went for there, Aksys. Oh wait, I forgot. THIS GAME WAS MADE BY FUCKING BEES.

Wait, it was YOU GUYS?!