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A mysterious force called the “Blaze” has distorted and corrupted the world, twisting humanity into terrifying creatures known as Meta-Beings. As the amnesic, mute protagonist, the player must use their Angelic Rifle to purify their sins (which seem to have wrought the apocalypse) by battling through a mysterious structure called Neuro Tower. In typical dungeon-crawler/roguelike fashion, Baroque offers next to nothing in terms of articulating goals and objectives, save a few cryptic bits of dialogue delivered by the distorted inhabitants of the world.

One of the game’s most important, and intriguing, features is its use of death as an essential tool for progressing through the game and unraveling its lethargic narrative. Throughout the game, your Vitality meter is constantly depleting. As long as you have some Vitality, however, your health will regenerate. As soon as your Vitality runs out, your health starts depleting. Health and Vitality are restored by eating random chunks of meat, bones, and/or pieces of fruit lying around the dirty, dirty dungeons.

Dying does have its rewards, though, as it not only pushes the story forward, but it also influences the level designs and enemy patterns in the tower. This mechanic would be great if there was any indication as to how many trips through the tower were required or what needed to be accomplished on each subsequent exploration. Sadly, that isn’t the case. Oh, and here’s another fun part of the dying mechanic: you lose all of your items (except for those you have stored in handy Consciousness Orbs) and experience points, and you begin outside the tower at level one. There’s challenging, and then there’s sadistic, and it’s pretty clear where Baroque falls on that spectrum.

Grindhog Day

Repetitive, monotonous and, you guessed it, tedious gameplay do not an enjoyable game make. In this respect, Baroque stands as a shining example. Unlike Persona 3, (another roguish title from Atlus Games) which broke up the endless dungeon-crawling by incorporating a high-school-student element that allowed players to explore several different environments (school grounds, different parts of a city, etc.) and build relationships with fellow students, Baroque relishes in repetitious grinding and limited environmental variation. While the tower levels do change after each death, they are still basically the same rooms and hallways over and over. This might be good news for the hardest of the hardcore gamers out there, but it’s not such good news for people looking to test the waters of this brutal and unforgiving genre.

Along those lines, the inclusion of a real-time fighting system, as opposed to the more traditional turn-based system favored by dungeon-crawlers, seems to be the developers attempting to attract the uninitiated. If that was the intention, it failed miserably, because there is simply not enough variation in the gameplay or hooks in the narrative to provide an engaging and enjoyable experience for the majority of gamers. Conversely, the real-time fighting system could easily put off traditionalists, who believe that taking turns and allowing your opponent equal time to deal death is the only respectable and civilized way to fight.

Battle Fatigue

Sluggish, unsatisfying combat mixed with poor camera controls make fighting unnecessarily hard, especially when you are surrounded and being pummeled by scores of disproportionately strong enemies. Situations like this occur constantly, and many times, you will find yourself taking damage at the start of a new level before you even take control of the character. Again, challenging is fine as long as it doesn’t come at the expense of enjoyment. Unfortunately, Baroque seems more interested in promoting its impressive character design and clever narrative structure than providing a satisfying gaming experience.

There is also no class system or magic casting. You can apply upgrades (coats, wings, injections, parasites) to items or yourself to raise defenses, increase attack levels, prevent poisoning or even cure stomachaches (Yep. You can get a virtual stomachache to supplement the real one you will get when you realize that you actually paid for this game.) While the upgrading offers a certain amount of personalization, knowing that you will have to start over at zero once you die makes the whole business a waste of time.

Who Could Love Me?!?

It’s a shame that Baroque gets it jollies from being excessively ambiguous and unrewarding because the narrative progression is actually quite compelling. Rather than directing the player from plot point to plot point, the game requires you to explore every inch of the game world in the hopes of finding an area or a character that will then trigger a cut scene and inch the plot forward. Sadly, these instances arrive too infrequently and never really provide anything concrete enough to make you want to find out what happens next. There are a few solid twists and surprises but not until later in the game, and by then, the frustration at having been left in the dark for so long totally diffuses the narrative tension.

By far the most impressive aspect of the game is its character design. Each creature is more ghoulish and original than the last, except of course the Soconpo Meta-Being, who steals some key features from the Mayor in Nightmare Before Christmas. The twisted inhabitants of the world are equally horrific and inventive, but as is the case with most of the game’s more interesting elements, these characters end up being more annoying than engaging due to their vague and generally unhelpful dialogue.

If you’re still on the fence, here’s a quick test: If wandering through endless hallways and engaging in unsatisfying, three-move combat for countless hours with no indication as to your progress or your objectives is your idea of a good time, then Baroque will satisfy you to no end. If you find yourself tearing your hair out just reading that description, stay away…far away.

Review by: Jake Gaskill