Subsurface Circular (Nintendo Switch: 2018)

A few months ago I played a really short game on my Nintendo Switch and I loved it. It's called Subsurface Circular and was ported to the Switch in early 2018. I saw it on sale for under £4.00 and thought I would give it a shot based purely on the synopsis of the game and the designs of its robots.
I had no idea it was made by Mike Bithell and his company Mike Bithell Games who made another short Indie game hit Thomas Was Alone (Which I would also highly recommend). I think if I'd have known it was made by him I'd have likely picked it up sooner than I did.

The game is a text based adventure game in which you play as a Robot Detective in the not too distant future who is tasked with solving a case in which many other Robots are going missing. In order to do this you as the player are confined to the underground rail network and have to talk to a number of other worker robots and solve short puzzles in order to crack the case.

The gameplay is entirely simplistic and the perfect sort of game to play on the Switch in tablet mode (Or on an Ios device). The game is presented as a question and answer scenario with the odd puzzle placed here and there but this is more of a quick look at the rail map or a decision on who to talk to first and which questions to ask that will open up answers to other passengers questions. I enjoy that the game never really goes too far above that in terms of the gameplay because it allows the focus to be on its narrative.

I adore the Robot designs in the game for a few reasons. They stick to a more or less humanoid form and keep a simplistic approach to their colour schemes and facial designs. I feel as though they are the 'right' amount of futuristic as they don't look too much like humans yet and I feel they would not be too out of places in a movie like Blade Runner. It is a shame we did not see much of the world above ground but I do like the focus the game puts on where it wants you to be and why.




To speak more about this I enjoyed that the game could do a lot of world building purely by the conversations you have rather than have you explore as you are only confined to a single train car. It's interesting to see what could happen in our future with the advancements in robotics and perhaps we too would have humanoid robots replace us in many aspects much like this game.

It's interesting to wonder would we give them as much or little freedom as is afforded to them in this game. It was quite harrowing in some ways to see what would happen to a certain unit once you had removed the limiters it was constricted in to by its creators by inputting a certain phrase. It was totally surreal to see a Robot feel some form of 'freedom' for the short time it was on the train with you and it was kind of heart warming to see some of them thank you for it.

I do wonder will there be a point where there will be rights for machines and Robots who are more or less also constricted by us to serve a certain purpose.

The final chapter of the game and its lead up are absolutely fantastic. I will try not to go too much into it as I don't wish to spoil the game for people who have yet to try it however it deals with a dilemma of do you upset the status quo and hope that a new future works itself out or do you keep with the status quo and not risk a terrible unchangeable  outcome but still be stuck with the parts of the your present 'life' that really are not that great.

To have one simple enough case lead up to a moral question such as this really shows how well Mike Bithell and the team are at weaving a great narrative. I am generally excited to see what they come out with next and only hope it can match this game or surpass it.

If I did have to try and critique an aspect of the game I would say it does feel a lot more like a visual novel at times as I feel I can't really lose. There is not a time limit to find the answer to questions in a chapter or anything like that so you really can just go at your leisure. There also is not an incentive to replay the game at any point other than perhaps the last chapter just to see the outcome of the other decision you make. However if you are into directors commentary you do unlock this for every chapter once you beat the game.

Overall Subsurface Circular is a great short game to play on a rainy afternoon or on your commute. It may also be a great title to start of with if you are looking to get in to the genre. I would highly recommend picking this title up on the Switch the next time you're heading to the Eshop!

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (1985)

 

It’s been a really long time since I posted here but I wanted to talk about a series I rewatched recently called Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam from 1985 which was the first in a series of sequels to the original Mobile Suit Gundam. I’ve been collecting the Blu Rays of the Gundam series recently as they have slowly started to come to the UK thanks to the fine folks at AlltheAnime and Zeta was one of my favourites when I first watched it almost 10 years ago.

Now I’ve seen pretty much everything Gundam related that’s been released but Zeta had always had that status for me that it was one of the highest points the franchise could hope to reach and from what I’ve seen online from the fan base this seems to be the general opinion.  I remember I really enjoyed it when I originally saw it but I feel almost 10 years is enough time to warrant a rewatch of the series and re-evaluate if I still hold it in high regard. So allow me just to pick a few things I liked as disliked about the show this time around.

I think right off the bat I need to mention how in love I am with the Mecha designs in Zeta. They are absolutely some of the best in the Universal Century and in the Gundam franchise itself. I have to say they know how to take simplistic designs and add to them such as the Gundam Mk II which is pretty much the original Gundam with only small ‘upgrades’. While this keeps the Mobile Suit looking new and perhaps sleeker it doesn’t hesitate to preserve some elements that made the original suit so iconic. 

To counter this point they are also not afraid to take what we are already familiar with and totally change it. For example the Zeta Gundam itself was different from anything we had seen up until that point. The famous Gundam head design was refined and the transformation gimmick gave a real sense of changing times for the series both in the show itself and to its fans. 

I am happy they kept with the general theme of the ‘bad guys’ having single 'mono-eyed' Mobile Suits even more so in this series because the Titans who are this shows antagonists used to be considered the ‘good guys’ in the previous series but have become their own entity not governed by the Earth Federation. By having them go back to using Mobile Suits typically associated with ‘evil’ and even having an in-show reason for this such as Zeon technology being more advanced I felt it really helped to emphasise that the Titans were to a corrupt version of the Earth Federation.

One of the best aspects of the show is Char now being a protagonist under the name of Quattro. Char was the primary rival in the original series whose motivations were never exactly clear until partway through that show. It was questionable whether he was evil or just saw things from another perspective. I find that is the case for many factions and characters within the Universal Century and feel this only boosts Chars appeal to fans.

In this show we see a new side of him where he has become a true leader and Father figure or Teacher to many of the younger cast members, specifically Kamille who I feel at times could either be the next Amuro or the next Char. I feel that Char can see this too and attempts to mould him in that direction. I would not say he is doing this for any ulterior motive I truly believe he sees it as his own way of paving the road for the next generation and Newtypes in general.

 

I find that the protagonist of the show Kamille shows real growth and development throughout the series. He is annoying at first and very childish but as the show progresses he really grows into an adult and a capable pilot. I think his progression raises interesting questions such as how a teenager would react in a literal war zone when they are the pilot of arguably the most important machine in the war. This of course is answered in the original series too but this time around Kamille is surrounded by people who have done this before and are in many cases Veterans.

Now while he does show he is a capable person over time he does have a number of missteps where he lets his emotions run wild. With examples such as when a friend is killed or when the love of his life is actually under the control of the enemy and has their memories tampered with. It takes Kamille a long time to start using his emotions as a weapon in order to benefit his faction but once he does he becomes a force to be reckoned with. 

Kamille most of the time as mentioned above shows that he could go either the way of Char or the way of  previous series protagonist Amuro. This is shown quite early on in the series when he loses Four Murasame in a situation quite close to that of what Amuro and Char went through when Lalah was killed in Mobile Suit Gundam. What is important and allows Kamille to stand out though is that he doesn’t specifically follow either characters advice and allows himself to pave his own way. By being able to do this he is not just a mirror image of his seniors he is his own person and a much more interesting character because of it. I feel this point is the main reason he matures throughout the show.

I also have to say I found Jerid likeable at times. Jerid was this aggressive rival to Kamille right off the bat purely because he thought Kamille was a girl’s name… While this starts off extremely petty each one of them continues to antagonise the other with Jerid always rushing into battle the moment he knows Kamille is on the battlefield. This has consequences for both characters though as each one of them end up killing those close to the other party.

Naturally this only intensifies their hate for one another but in a roundabout way it showed that Jerid actually was a good pilot and could continue to improve. At times it would even show he had leadership skills and those that would follow him. Personally, I feel he had the edge at times as he was continuously getting new mobile suits to pilot yet he really could have become a Newtype to rival Kamille if he had lived longer.

As much as I enjoy much of the characterisations in the show I do feel that some characters seem to have ridiculous motivations for what they do. The worst offender for this is Reccoa who was with the AEUG from the start of the show and was a valued member of the team, she was capable and another of those the younger team would look up to. The issue is she goes on reconnaissance and meets the antagonist Scirroco and immediately begins to almost love him.

Because of this she abandons the AEUG and joins the Titans, a group of people she has fought against for some time, a group she has seen commit countless atrocities. There are times early on when she joins the Titans that she is seen to disagree with their methods but eventually she becomes just as bad as they are, all because she wishes to be closer to Scirroco.

I find this utterly ridiculous and some could argue it is because Char does not return her affection early on. Regardless we have Emma who was originally on the side of the Titans but once she begins to see how they operate she joins the AEUG because she does not agree with what the Titans has become, this is a much more reasonable explanation for someone to join another faction!

I found the pacing of the series to be quite good as I never believed there to be an episode that was not warranted like I do with a lot of Anime nowadays. Everything that happened seemed to happen for a reason and if there were ever deaths they felt like they served a real purpose to the rest of the cast. 

The last two episodes are where I feel the pacing seemed ever so slightly rushed in terms of character deaths, in the space of only a few minutes you could have two or three major players bite the dust! I think you could counter this by saying this is to show you how terrible war can be and that no particular person is actually safe just because they are one of the main cast. Zeta Gundam does do this well to be fair the show ends with both sides pretty much obliterated. The Titans have pretty much all their major players killed and are disbanded, The AEUG is crippled with only one pilot being left and our protagonist is in a comatose state. I don’t know of many other series that leave the protagonists in a state such as this! It’s aspects like this that can make me see why a lot of the fan base consider this series to be depressing. 

Personally I feel it’s not that bad as it leads into an immediate sequel ZZ Gundam albeit with a new cast joining and being much more light-hearted. But I certainly agree that the ending to this series as a whole is depressing if you are to take ZZ out of the equation. I wonder if it is jarring to people who only watch these shows in English as ZZ was not dubbed yet the follow-up movie CCA was!

Now I should mention as a side note there are three compilation movies for Zeta that were released between 2005 and 2006, I have watched them and I don’t remember enjoying them as much as the series itself as they would primarily reuse old animation and just condense the story however they would randomly add newly animated scenes which at times totally changed what happened in the original version, for example certain people who died may now have lived. 

My issue with the compilations was that it was so jarring to go from 1985 animation to mid-2000’s animation, there was nothing wrong with how either worked and I really believe they should have just reanimated the entire thing as it would help flow of the scenes and their transitions. Failing that why not just do these compilations with the original animation back in the 80s…

So overall do I still feel like Zeta is still one of my favourite series in all of Gundam? I would say no, it’s still worth a watch and I don’t regret rewatching it because it allowed me to appreciate certain elements I missed previously but I feel like its status for me has changed dramatically. As I’ve said there are plenty of elements I love about this show but I find the motivations of certain characters to be utterly ridiculous, so much so that it really makes me question what the writers were thinking at the time.

I feel there is a lot of fluff in the series that otherwise could be trimmed down and the ending is severely lacking but I’d recommend it to anyone interested specifically in Universal Century Gundam series, it is a small piece of a much larger saga and it certainly has earnt its place as it has  monumental moments for the characters such as Char, Amuro and Kamille.

Zeta you’ve got a lot of flaws, but you’ve also got some of the best Mech designs in the entire franchise, you showed us how to continue the story of the original cast while bringing in the next generation along with them and ultimately you set up a lot of major elements for the rest of Universal Century, you’re worth the watch!