In my extensive history with JRPGs I can safely say I have never experienced anything like this. By “extensive history”, I mean I’ve complained on the internet a lot and looked at screenshots. Still, there’s something about a sidekick called “Leg Horse” and a screaming monster giving helpful hints like “I HEAR THERE IS BLOOD IN BLOOD CAVE”.
Space Funeral is an absurd, completely nonsensical JRPG. You start off in a room with two monster-looking creatures and yourself apparently dead in a casket. When you move, your character is constantly crying from his misshapen head while moving about in a decidedly un-normal manner. One of the monsters politely tells you, “Your Mother and I think you should leave.” Then you’re off to a weird, weird world of adventure.
As a JRPG, the game is fairly standard, once you figure out what the hell “Bag of Blood” and several other oddly named items do. The unique and somewhat disturbing angle on this game is that the story seems to be complete nonsense, yet it all hangs together. A random passerby will say something completely incomprehensible to you, yet you know that they are a random NPC giving you helpful hints. Sure enough, later you will run into exactly what they were saying. It sticks to the genre staples so vehemently that the complete nonsense layer painted on top doesn’t prevent you from understanding the game.
The music and level design are just as nonsensical. At one point, one of the music tracks is just a woman speaking poetry aloud. The companion you find, “Leg Horse” is literally a horse made of human legs. Everything in the scenery—rocks, trees, cacti—they all have faces. It becomes unsettling or hilarious after a while, depending on your slant.
Epilepsy Warning: The game seems to have a bug where the screen flashes. A lot. Just be wary if you suffer from epilepsy.
Why You Should Check This Out: If you’ve ever wanted to see the contention that “story doesn’t matter in games” laid out all in one JRPG, this is it. With completely nonsensical story, art, and music while mechanics still strictly adhere to JRPG cliches, this game seems to make no sense. But in a way it still does, thanks to the very traditional mechanics. Plus, who doesn’t want to fight a Ground Shark?
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Comments
My pal Mike wrote this one up as well, for a column we share over on Colony of Gamers. He liked it - I tried it out and... it wasn't for me. I think I may be getting old.
Steam ID: Ravenlock;
XBL / GFWL Gamertag: Ravenlock80;
Nintendo Network ID: Ravenlock;
I used to write sometimes at http://www.erraticgamer.com
Totally weird... I'm not into JRPG's at all but I'm completely into weird, so I'll give it a go and see if it will keep my interest. Any more completely absurd games you know of?
I'll check this one out. I'm beginning to believe that story in games is irrelevant and distracting, so I'm curious to see a game with that element removed.
Professionally offended. Does not understand jokes. Needs a man to explain them to me.
Funny.
More funny!
"Yeah, well, uh, just keep your Power Gloves off her, pal, huh?" -Corey, from "The Wizard"
Holy weird! It's Pokemon on psilocybin.
I am SHOPKEEP! I desire all RUBLES!
Grabbed this and am at level 10 and off to Blood Cave.
So far I'm liking it, but the graphics are downright painful to look at. I had to actually move my character to be able to identify him on the first two screens. True middle-of-the-road C64 quality here and the visuals really remind me of some other game, probably of that era, but I can't place them.
Assuming it the creator(s) intended it to be a long string of metaphors, I think I actually follow the "story" so far, but it *is* really early still.
Steam | Backloggery
Agreed. This game is a giant acid trip. I've lost interest, but it was a nice diversion for a few hours. A slight graphical/UI upgrade would make this a lot more playable.
If you've spent a few hours on it, you're probably right at the end. I think it took me just over 2 hours (not counting one instance of unsaved progress being lost).
Here's an interesting minor spoiler:
Steam | Backloggery
Thanks, AUs. This morning, I finished it up on the bus. It was worth it, overall, just for the bizarro quality.
A quick note about the screen flashing: if you hit F4, that will take it out of fullscreen mode and into windowed, and the flashing should stop. I had this problem with Ib, too, which was made on the same platform.