Cell of Empireo — Mar 22, 2018 by SharkTale Factory
I’ve finally done it. I’ve gone so far down the rabbit hole of JOPing that I’m out here reviewing freemaker RPG masterpieces. No, no, don’t worry, I am not at all upset by this turn of events. It just feels rather uncanny to be here, ranting about how a game made on a budget of zero dollars is actually one of the best stories I had the pleasure of experiencing in the medium of gaming, but that’s just how life is sometimes. Cell of Empireo is the debut game of Japanese game developer SharkTale Factory, which was released on March 22, 2018 as a free game for RPGMaker IV. Since then, it has received two update DLCs—The Records of Sanemitsu Isoi and Interlude. The sequel to Empireo, Cell of Mirage, is still in development. Recently, SharkTale announced that Cell of Empireo would be receiving a manga adaptation. Cell of Empireo follows the protagonist, Atou Haruki, and his investigation of a missing persons case—which results in him being abducted by a strange religious organization. He wakes up in a ruined facility, and over the course of the game he slowly comes to understand the events that took place inside that facility, as well as their relation to his personal past and traumas. Cell of Empireo’s gameplay resembles many RPGMaker mystery horror games, where one must investigate clues and uncover truths whilst dodging monsters and other scary things.
Starting with the game’s shortfalls, unfortunately, this game FUCKING SUCKS to play. Like holy shit. You’ve got three resources to keep track of: Health, Sanity, and Erosion. Health and Sanity can be recovered by using consumables, but Erosion will increase whenever you are attacked by enemies or do something that’s a spoiler. Erosion is annoying, because there is no way to reduce it until Chapter 7, and if it reaches 100%, you die instantly. CoE almost seems to encourage savescumming, as getting hit by an enemy, even one, can mean your Erosion will reach high percentages, making later sections extremely punishing. The way I ended up playing was to F12 reset the game if I ever got hit, resulting in things going much faster in the long run, as boss sections get much easier with a ton of health to tank hits.
With regard to bosses, the game has about five boss fights, all of which are beaten through either doing insane WarioWare microgames that you’re expected to figure out on the spot, or running around doing Ao Oni style chase scenes. I didn’t really enjoy them, as much of the chase scene AI is completely bugged and will get stuck running up and down until your approach, at which point they’ll juke you out of your socks and kill you. Conversely, the final boss is pretty fun actually, but its microgame instructions are for some reason written in English. Poor JP players must have had a hard time.
Also, the horror aspects don’t really work. Most of it is getting trolled into a cheap jumpscare, and the fact that the game will straight up tell you when there’s any danger means you aren’t always on edge. Also, some sound effects are INSANELY loud. In Chapter 4, there’s the sound of a monster screaming that is at least 50% louder than the rest of the game. It’s supposed to signal a jumpscare coming that you should enter a room to avoid, but if you inspect any object it immediately gets disabled. Who even cares.
My final, and largest complaint to levy against the gameplay specifically: There are 6 endings to the game. You will almost certainly get the worst one, with the least amount of content, if you don’t religiously follow a guide. The creator themselves actually had to produce a guide on achieving all the endings in the game, because it’s seriously that obtuse. And they don’t even have the decency to be specific about the requirements! The guide tells you “Get the information on Jabuchi from talking to Nina.” It doesn’t tell you when to do so, or that you have to talk to Nina TWICE, as well as the fact that you must SELECT A PARTICULAR CONVERSATION OPTION OR BE LOCKED OUT OF THE ROUTE. Really miserable stuff.
The creator of this game clearly exclusively makes BL, and as a result of that, none of the women have any kind of development or motivation that doesn’t revolve around male characters. And there’s like four women in the game total too. It's really dire. Thankfully, that’s the last of my complaints.
Cell of Empireo, visually, looks quite good. All of the character sprites are cute, and the whole game has a very unique, distinct style that perfectly accentuates the tone it’s going for at almost every point. Kanou is a standout: I love white haired anime boys, and he just looks perfect for the crazed mad scientist he pretends to be.
Regarding the writing: yeah, this is it. This is the big one. There’s no shortage of JRPGs who parallel themselves with Christian or other religious literature, but very few manage to pull off these parallels without seeming shallow. I can only name FFX, for that matter. CoE uses and subverts The Divine Comedy and Christian canon in truly exceptional ways. Haruki and Kanou make an exceptional Dante and Vergil, yet they are, much like the rest of the game, deeply sullied and steeped in filth that make them compelling twists on the character they are based off of. Two characters in particular parallel Jesus and Judas rather easily. However, it is CoE’s addition of a third character, a sort of mentor to Jesus' human side, that elevates their usage of familiar icons to legendary status. A heavily referenced theme throughout CoE is identity. The amnesiac Shinano, asks:
The me after I lost these memories, and the me who was in those memories… If I get back those memories, who will I be?
Identity is a question that plagues many characters. Who is Hajime, the kind hearted human or the Messiah? Who is Minoru, the selfish bastard or the misguided mentor? Is Shinano truly a monster, if he cannot remember his deeds? Who is Haruki? “Do the grapes on the vine wish to become wine?” Cell of Empireo is not a fun game to play. Its writing, however, both on a fundamental plot level and character writing, is truly exceptional. Currently, the only available English translation is through a video series on Youtube (which isn’t too bad because, as I said, it isn’t very fun to play). I think the translation in that video is somewhat subpar, although my standards are just very high. When that manga adaptation comes out, however, I better see you English speakers reading the scanlations of it every week. CoE’s narrative is truly magical, and I can’t wait for all of you to experience it for yourselves. Just don’t play it unless you like your kamige flawed.
— Ribbiwawa