I finished playing through the demo for Inescapable: No Rules, No Rescue. A game made by Kotaro Uchikoshi, who also made the Zero Escape trilogy.
The premise: eleven strangers are kidnapped onto a tropical resort where they have all amenities available and those that survive for half a year will receive a large sum of money. The kidnappers claim to be producers for a reality TV show, and said that if the participants won't make things sufficiently interesting for the viewers they'll intervene to ensure that something happens.
Since I've played through two of the Danganronpa games and the Zero Escape trilogy for the first time during this year I can definitely see where the game has had its inspiration. From the premise alone it sounds how Uchikoshi would make a Danganronpa-style game, since he favors character above high school age and the youngest character here is 18. I remember when playing through Danganronpa thinking of alternate scenarios to ensure a bunch of strangers were in an isolated place with competitions and danger of death and thinking "Why not make it a reality TV* show... with a deadly twist?". A solution I thought was obvious, right up until I checked up on Wikipedia and found out that the grand daddy of competitive reality TV, Big Brother, has never had a Japanese version, and Survivor, the other major big one, only aired for one year before they gave up on it. So it's probably not a form of show popular in Japan and therefore less relatable to players there, which is probably why all the eleven characters are from Europe. A Norwegian, a Finn, a Swede, an Estonian, a Dutchman, a Brit, a German, a Frenchwoman, a Portuguese, an Italian and a person of origin heritage all are present.
*I realize that the term "reality TV" is a lot more broad than the term that I want to use (isn't Keeping it up with the Kardashians an example of reality TV?) but the term I'm trying to use would if translated to English be documentary soap opera. i.e. that the objective of the producers is to use real people in isolation to manufacture a soap opera.
Anyway: the fact that the people are older means they are a lot less obnoxious than in Danganronpa since maturity has set in. Apart from that there is some hints of what the full game will be like, where you get some moments where you get to pick what characters to hang out with but and learn more of but otherwise it seems a strictly linear affair. So far the characters reminds me of Danganronpa, since everyone has one gimmick to make them stick out.
The demo ends before any actual gameplay has occurred. They've managed to build a raft and is a far way from the island when suddenly one character gets cold feet, the others agree and everyone decides to return. I thought that came a bit out of nowhere; if they could sell how dangerous it actually is to paddle on unknown waters at night I might have thought it a more natural course of action but as is it felt a bit forced. I realize the plot obviously cannot be "and then they all escaped" but I think a better solution to ensure that outcome would've been if they discover that the raft had been tampered with by the producers so they'll have to return to shore. That would've ensured a "big brother is watching you" feeling.
I won't buy the full game when it releases in a few weeks. I am a bit fatigued by this kind of plot right now.
EDIT: I misread things. Kotaro Uchikoshi had no hand in this project; this is from Finnish developer Dreamloop.
The premise: eleven strangers are kidnapped onto a tropical resort where they have all amenities available and those that survive for half a year will receive a large sum of money. The kidnappers claim to be producers for a reality TV show, and said that if the participants won't make things sufficiently interesting for the viewers they'll intervene to ensure that something happens.
Since I've played through two of the Danganronpa games and the Zero Escape trilogy for the first time during this year I can definitely see where the game has had its inspiration. From the premise alone it sounds how Uchikoshi would make a Danganronpa-style game, since he favors character above high school age and the youngest character here is 18. I remember when playing through Danganronpa thinking of alternate scenarios to ensure a bunch of strangers were in an isolated place with competitions and danger of death and thinking "Why not make it a reality TV* show... with a deadly twist?". A solution I thought was obvious, right up until I checked up on Wikipedia and found out that the grand daddy of competitive reality TV, Big Brother, has never had a Japanese version, and Survivor, the other major big one, only aired for one year before they gave up on it. So it's probably not a form of show popular in Japan and therefore less relatable to players there, which is probably why all the eleven characters are from Europe. A Norwegian, a Finn, a Swede, an Estonian, a Dutchman, a Brit, a German, a Frenchwoman, a Portuguese, an Italian and a person of origin heritage all are present.
*I realize that the term "reality TV" is a lot more broad than the term that I want to use (isn't Keeping it up with the Kardashians an example of reality TV?) but the term I'm trying to use would if translated to English be documentary soap opera. i.e. that the objective of the producers is to use real people in isolation to manufacture a soap opera.
Anyway: the fact that the people are older means they are a lot less obnoxious than in Danganronpa since maturity has set in. Apart from that there is some hints of what the full game will be like, where you get some moments where you get to pick what characters to hang out with but and learn more of but otherwise it seems a strictly linear affair. So far the characters reminds me of Danganronpa, since everyone has one gimmick to make them stick out.
The demo ends before any actual gameplay has occurred. They've managed to build a raft and is a far way from the island when suddenly one character gets cold feet, the others agree and everyone decides to return. I thought that came a bit out of nowhere; if they could sell how dangerous it actually is to paddle on unknown waters at night I might have thought it a more natural course of action but as is it felt a bit forced. I realize the plot obviously cannot be "and then they all escaped" but I think a better solution to ensure that outcome would've been if they discover that the raft had been tampered with by the producers so they'll have to return to shore. That would've ensured a "big brother is watching you" feeling.
I won't buy the full game when it releases in a few weeks. I am a bit fatigued by this kind of plot right now.
EDIT: I misread things. Kotaro Uchikoshi had no hand in this project; this is from Finnish developer Dreamloop.
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(though I only added the RE4 screenshot as an example of the roar, not of the anti-ass scratch games, lol)
