Baroque (video game)

Baroque (バロック Barokku) is a role-playing video game developed by and published Sting Entertainment, released in Japan for the Sega Saturn on May 21, 1998. It was ported for PlayStation on October 28, 1999, also released only in Japan. A remake version was for PlayStation 2 and Wii and was released in June 28, 2007 and March 13, 2008, respectively. Atlus announced that they would release the game in North America and was scheduled for release in the United States on March 18, 2008 for the PlayStation 2 and Wii. Atlus USA released both versions of the game on April 8, 2008. On December 28, 2012, Sting released it for the Apple iOS platform. Rising Star Games released in Europe on July 18, 2008 for PS2 and August 22, 2008 for the Wii.

Gameplay
The objective of Baroque is to guide the nameless amnesiac player character through the Neuro Tower to the bottom floor. Randomly generated, the majority of the layouts of the Neuro Tower's floors change each time the player ventures inside. Portals found on each floor of the tower will transport the player to the next floor. Death in Baroque does not result in a game over screen, but advances the plot, unlocking cutscenes, new areas, and comments by the non-player characters. The Neuro Tower expands after certain conditions are met.

The player character begins the game outside of the Neuro Tower with no items or experience points. Before entering the Neuro Tower, the player is presented with an Angelic Rifle, a special weapon that can destroy any monster with a single shot. However, the rifle has an ammunition capacity of five shots. The player can find items, swords, and equipment scattered around the tower at random and by defeating enemies—which also grants the player experience points, allowing the player character to gain levels and become more powerful. However, should the protagonist die before reaching the end of the dungeon, the player will be returned to the starting point outside the tower, and will lose all items, including those equipped, and all gained experience points. By throwing an item into a consciousness orb, the player can retrieve it from one of the non-player characters on the next play-through. Up to five items can be saved in this manner at the start, but the number can increase if certain conditions are met.

The game uses two gauges to measure the protagonist's health: hit points and vitality. The vitality gauge constantly drains during gameplay. If it empties, the hit point gauge will begin to drain. Both gauges can be refilled by eating various forms of flesh and hearts to restore hit points and vitality respectively. If flesh or a heart is consumed while the relevant stat is filled to maximum, the protagonist's maximum hit points/vitality will increase by a fixed amount.

Setting and characters
Set after a world-altering cataclysm called the Blaze that took place on May 14, 2032, Baroque focuses on a nameless, mute, and amnesiac protagonist. Early on, he finds himself tasked with purifying the Meta-Beings, once-human creatures that have lost themselves to the delusions inside them, and reaching the bottom floor of a tower to gain redemption for his forgotten sin. Through his interactions with the other characters and unlocked cutscenes, the player learns about the back-story and characters.

Outside the tower, the protagonist encounters several characters: Collector, a young boy who stores items as a hobby; Coffin Man, who maintains an underground training dungeon; Baroquemonger, who possess the ability to read an Idea Sephirah; the Horned Girl, who can voice the thoughts of anyone near her, and lost her identity to shield herself; the Bagged One, who speaks the words of others instead of her own; Longneck, who took part in research; and the Sentry Angel, who guards the research facility. Within the tower, he finds other characters: Alice; Eliza, who seeks to create Consciousness Orbs by using the protagonist's Idea Sephirah and help heal the Absolute God; Doctor Angelicus; Fist & Scythe; Neophyte; the Littles, who exist as the embodiment of pain; and the Archangel, who lies impaled on a Consciousness Orb at the tower's bottom floor, and implores the protagonist to purify the Absolute God.

Story
Prior to the start of the game, the Order of Malkuth discovered that the Absolute God had returned to earth. They also found Consciousness Orbs, gigantic sensory orbs used by the Absolute God to compress reality, scattered around the world. The Malkuth Order wanted to learn more about the Absolute God, so they experimented with them. Subtle distortions in reality started appearing and people slowly began to change. The Archangel's sister was the first person to become a Meta-Being. The Malkuth Order, led by the Archangel, created artificial Consciousness Orbs to help stop the distortions, but the false orbs only added to the distortions. The Archangel removed "pain" from the Absolute God, and poured corrupted data into the Consciousness Orbs to keep the Absolute God from fixing the distortions. He then harvested the Absolute God's pain as the Littles.

Littles, the embodiment of pain, are creatures that can only live inside of "ampules" and were cultivated by Doctor Angelicus and Longneck. Their purpose was to be used as bullets for the Angelic Rifle, so that the Archangel can purify the Absolute God and take its Idea Sephirath to make a new world. The Koriel, a group of high-ranking members within the Malkuth Order, tried to stop the Archangel; they decided to make direct contact with the God through fusion to hear its will. A member of the Koriel, the protagonist had a conjoined twin brother, with whom he shared a heart. Only one of them could function at a time, and both were dying. The Koriel sacrificed the older brother, and picked the protagonist for the fusion. When the Archangel learned about the Koriel's plan, he interrupted the fusion and caused the Blaze. The Absolute God created Alice and Eliza to fill the gap left by him. While the God gained a voice, the protagonist became mute, but gained the ability to purify others. The consciousness of protagonist's deceased older brother got absorbed by the Consciousness Orbs and fused with him during the Dabar.

In the end, the protagonist fuses with the Absolute God along with Alice, Eliza and the Littles. Although the world is still distorted, they decide not to purify it; instead, they accept the distortion and thereby achieve freedom.

Development
Produced by Takeshi Santo, Baroque saw a Japan-only release for the Sega Saturn by Sting Entertainment on May 21, 1998; a Japanese release for the PlayStation followed on October 28, 1999, with a limited edition of the game appearing simultaneously. Masaharu Iwata composed the audio for Baroque while Toshiaki Sakoda developed the sound effects. For the remake of Baroque, the developers changed the viewpoint of the player from a first-person perspective to a third-person one with the option of playing in first-person. Additionally, Shigeki Hayashi composed the music for the remake. In Japan, Sting published the remake for a PlayStation 2 release on June 28, 2007, and a Wii version on March 13, 2008; in North America and Europe, the Wii and PlayStation 2 releases were simultaneously published on April 8, 2008, and August 29, 2008, respectively. In Europe, it was released by Rising Star Games, the PS2 version was released July 18, 2008 while the Wii version was released on August 22, 2008, it uses an original Japanese and Dubbed version that can choose in option mode.



Manga
Baroque was adapted into a horror fantasy shōnen manga titled BAROQUE 欠落のパラダイム (Ketsuraku no Paradaimu Baroque), written by Shinshuu Ueda. The chapters were serialized in Monthly GFantasy and were published in three volumes by Square Enix from March 2001 to March 2002.

Series
After the initial release of the game for the Sega Saturn, Sting developed a special CD containing movies, assets and art from the game; it was released only in Japan for the Sega Saturn as Baroque Report: CD Data File. Baroque spawn another game in the series for the PSOne in 2000 (and later for PSN), Baroque Syndrome, which plays like a visual novel and serves as a prequel to the events that led to the cataclysm. Sting also developed and released a scrolling shootemup, Baroque Shooting, and a typing game, Baroque Typing, for Windows, in 2000 and 2002 respectively. These games were released only in Japan. Two additional games were released for iOS systems, Baroque FPS and Baroque: The Dark, Twisted Fantasy.

Reception
Baroque received mixed reviews, with a combined score on GameRankings of 53% for the Wii version and 58% for the PS2 version. The most common complaint focused on the game's extreme difficulty curve. RPGFan explained "...it is not for everyone. Only those who truly appreciate rogue-like RPGs will be able to get the most enjoyment out of it."

Daemon Hatfield of IGN felt that while Baroque had a "unique" concept, it lacked direction. Hatfield criticized the game concept as "convoluted" and rated the game "5.4". GameSpot's Lark Anderson described it as "[a] fiendishly difficult, randomly generated dungeon crawler that at times can be an incredible work of interactive fiction, and at other times, a muddled mess." Anderson praised the variety of items and weapons, and the "strong and compelling" story, but thought the unconventional, deliberately unclear method of storytelling and lack of an introduction made it difficult for the player to care about it.