Paratopic Review | Bad dreams and video tapes | Questionably Explained

[Music] uh [Music] [Music] paratopic is a firsters horror bad dream simulator developed and published by arbitrary metric in 2018 the steam page describes paratopic as an atmospheric retro 3D horror Adventure through a cursed fever dream and yeah I'd say that describes it pretty well the game follows the only somewhat related stories of three people a bird watcher an assassin and a Smuggler The Smuggler is transporting VHS tapes across the border the bird watcher is watching Birds and the Assassin [Music] is we start off being interrogated by border security we've been caught trying to sneak VHS tapes across the border what border we don't know what's on the tapes we don't know what is is is this just a thing this guy usually does or maybe are the tapes doing all that or we just don't know but you know if some unknowable Maleficent transdimensional Force were to bleed into our reality I'm really not surprised that it's through VHS [ __ ] everything was on VHS there was a part early on when playing as bird watcher where we come across a dilapitated old shack in the woods inside the shack is a staircase leading down to a door that can't be opened at least at first we descend the cyclopian staircase and find ourselves in what looks to be an old control room after switching a breaker and powering on the monitors that discordant staticky jingle plays and the video follows [Music] it looks to be an informational video about a group known as the power company the video speaks of some Grand project fighting for a better tomorrow and thanking those working on the project for the sacrifices they've made we're not given much more than that but considering the state of the facility you found the machine in and later the plentiful amount of damaged storage containers strewn throughout the forest bearing the power company's logo and the seemingly damaged State the world is in I think it's safe to assume that the power company wasn't successful in their efforts the world and the tone of this game give me a feeling of an almost postapocalypse but a very distinct type of post-apocalypse not like a sexy everything is complet completely destroyed Fallout or Mad Max type deal but something quieter a few points throughout the story you're making these long drives towards the Border first you drive through what seems to be a dilapitated city or at least one in disrepair and the road twists from the Broken City into an endless stretch of County with either sides of the highway beset by damaged electric Towers the skeletons of old Barns and broken silos it feels like everything is taking place in the aftermath of a larger breakdown or some Mass disorder things feel like they aren't how they once were and definitely aren't how they should be the world feels Barren and quiet more so than it should and the game conveys this entirely through atmosphere Bleak visuals and often decrepit environments another way paratopic conveys its quiet dread is with long stretches of [Music] [Music] it loves to make you wait and really forces you to soak in its atmosphere it spends quite a bit of its pretty short run time building quiet tension forcing the player to sit in silence with the everpresent constantly Rising feeling that something bad is just waiting to happen paratopic doesn't quite feel like a nightmare at least not most of the time but it definitely delivers on feeling very dream like but that dream in question still isn't a very good one or at least I assume so all I ever seem to get when I go to sleep are stress dreams and static I can't remember the last time I had a dream that left me with anything other than anxious confusion or a vague sense of onwe what was I saying the story is presented in these strange seemingly disconnected chunks the instant and always jarring way it cuts from scene to scene the strange conversations are all very dreamlike and on top of that there's also this slow B to the world Everything feels like it's not moving as fast as it should be this place is indeed strange and filled with strange folk it feels like something big has changed the rules of this place and now this is just the way things are the power company was working on big things but now they're gone and in their wake all we're left with is questions and that's why I love little titles like this the questions I know I usually talk more in-depth about the story of a game but I'm just going to cut it here if this looks like your kind of thing you should really go play it visually I think paratopic is an absolute treat a bleak kind of sad treat but a treat nonetheless the models and environments exist in that chunky low poly look veryy in the spirit of the PlayStation one and that's how we like it God damn it the faces the characters have almost looked like somebody took a real photo and scuffed the absolute hell out of it and then wrapped it around a model and I I can't be certain if that's what they did but that's what I think of when I look at them and I I do like the way that looks the environments are also considerably low poly with almost everywhere you go in the game is dirty broken down and just desolate the game's environments all convey a very lonely quiet atmosphere and I I really like it there are a few places in the game that also have very pretty lighting like driving along the highway into a red dusk or light streaming through the dirty window of an apartment Lobby a single street light Illuminating a car on the side of the road very pretty stuff you know at first I was going to say that there isn't any music in paratopic until I realized that that statement was completely an utterly wrong there are about 10 proper music tracks in the game which most being very subtle atmospheric tracks that they that they really complement the scenes they're in actually they they complement them so much that half the time I didn't even realize they were playing they often blend really well into the background so much the they often blend really well into the background so much so that I'm never really sure what is OST and what's diagetic the tracks all have a very ethereal and haunting VI vibe to them kind of spooky kind of unsettling but also a strange calm uh I don't really know what the [ __ ] I'm talking about when it comes to describing or reviewing music so I'm I'm just going to say that I like it it's thematic it fits the setting and one of the tracks is straight out of Hotline Miami I'm not done with sound though despite having songs paratopic also loves using silence or diagetic sound to set a scene most notably during the driving segments where you're accompanied down long stretches of Highway with only the muffled sounds of your vehicle and talk radio if you're into that sort of thing col speaking of all the dialogue and paratopic is delivered in this muffled semicoherent muttering it's kind of like sounds you can almost make out what they're saying if you're like you're kind of listening to a conversation through a wall it it all adds to the very dreamlike tone the game is working for things are strange in the world of parad topic and all does not seem well we really never get an explanation for why things are the way they are who these people really are or even why they're doing what they're doing and to be honest that's one of the reasons I love this game it gives you a tiny Peak into another world a little tease of somebody else's weird brain working and gives you just enough to set your own mind working and wondering on the minations of this place the dream stream light quality makes me wonder what happened to this place what are its rules and how did it get this way are the videotapes like drugs are they sustenance what was the power company working on did they open some kind of door did they let something through are the tapes a product of the power company's meddling or a circumstance of it what does this logo mean and why is it similar to the power company's logo did they know what they were meddling with or did they stumble on something they shouldn't have just God I love this [ __ ] I guess you could ref refer to it as lynchian or kind of surrealist I I don't know I'm just a dumbass talking about video games paratopic is a right it's short surreal and overall I just think it's neat and I wanted to talk about it I I I don't know you can go play it and tell me how wrong I am and call me an [ __ ] in the comments or whatever either way that's all I've got today uh thank you for watching stay safe and take care of yourself you it's so oh

Channel: Questionably Explained

Views: 72

Keywords: Paratopic, horror game, walking simulator, review, Questionably Explained

Id: ksNDLN5Ub2E

Length: 13min 0sec (780 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 06 2023