Chapter 74. It's Mentally Ill From the Source
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Throughout June, sales of Mermaid's Heart skyrocketed like a rocket.
Also growing was the sales volume of Sega's MD game console.
MD sales this month increased by 10% year-over-year.
However, it was uncertain whether this was influenced by Mermaid's Heart.
Based on normal sales trends, perhaps such growth could have been achieved anyway.
...
Good sales figures were already enough to demonstrate many things, but Kiyoshi Yuuma was still not very satisfied, mainly because of Famitsu's score for the new release.
"Mermaid's Heart is perhaps the most unique game this editor has played to date.
It's truly difficult to score.
The main reason is that this game's strengths and weaknesses are both extremely prominent. Sometimes you don't even know whether to call something a [strength].
Or a [weakness]?
Let's tentatively discuss the evaluation of this game.
1. Imaginatively Rich Storyline
To provide an accurate evaluation, there may be spoiler content, which is almost unavoidable, so please view with caution.
A work's plot is like a piece of clothing. Whether this clothing looks good, is worth wearing, and will catch people's eyes largely depends on the clothing's style, color, fabric, etc.
The story plot is like this clothing waiting for customers to choose. To attract the audience, the plot must be vivid and appropriate.
Mermaid's Heart does this very well. The plot takes a unique path—the male protagonist Yamazaki Teru, after a shipwreck, encounters the mermaid Suzune at the bottom of the sea, and the entire world undergoes earth-shattering changes.
Combined with ideas borrowed from Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix Resurrection chapter, the imaginative style, and the various stories that unfold—
With a deeper plot foundation, it indeed has the capability to become a classic.
I won't spoil too much here—please experience the specifics in the game yourself.
2. Peculiar and Eerie Art Style
When deciding to watch an anime or play a game, the art style and visuals are indeed one of the key focuses, so this is also an issue creators need to consider.
Pokeni is renowned for exquisite visuals, smooth animation, and heart-stirring character designs. Mermaid's Heart perfectly inherits Pokeni's fine traditions.
The entire work of Mermaid's Heart presents a peculiar and eerie art style. Especially the protagonist Suzune—in the deep sea's blue-black scenery, only she exists as a pure and flawless white presence, forming a striking contrast that leaves a deep impression.
3. Producer Tsubaki Furuhara
Everyone is more than familiar with the great name of Tsubaki Furuhara.
This person emerged last year and quickly became famous, with a style known for being [light and cheerful] and [warm and healing].
'He drops one character by episode three, leaves no one by the end' is the highest praise fans have given him.
The two Onmyoji works have fully verified this, making countless players cry their hearts out.
Almost every work by Tsubaki Furuhara can become a classic and be praised, so as long as it bears Tsubaki Furuhara's name, the work has a guarantee. This gives Mermaid's Heart strong backing and indeed the strength to become a classic.
The above are the highlights I have compiled for Mermaid's Heart.
As for weaknesses, Mermaid's Heart also has very obvious ones:
The brand new galgame narrative method, with large blocks of text and image descriptions—rather than calling this a game work, it's more like a light novel interspersed with many exquisite illustrations.
It's precisely this point that greatly reduces the game's gameplay.
When accustomed to self-directed operations and game battles, this novel-like reading method truly leaves people at a loss.
However, this could also be considered pioneering a new genre. Whether more light novel-style games will appear in the future remains unknown.
Precisely because [there's almost no gameplay to speak of], I gave it 7 points."
"If it weren't for Mermaid's Heart's plot being too outstanding, this game couldn't have received any score at all. The gameplay is simply dismal, with large blocks of text description causing quite a headache.
This has almost completely lost its game nature.
But the plot is truly too spectacular. From the beginning, Mermaid's Heart excels at creating suspense, combined with perfect character design.
Exquisite visuals and excellent soundtrack, consistently spectacular endings—it's hard not to both love and hate this work.
Even if this work cannot be selected for Famitsu's game hall of fame, it will definitely leave a significant mark in gaming history.
In the spirit of objective game evaluation, I can only say that for such a work, being able to give it 7 points is already my limit."
...
Total score of 28 points, two points short of entering hall of fame level games.
However, this didn't hinder Mermaid's Heart's acclaim at all.
This game could be considered a unique flower among galgames. As the editors evaluated, Mermaid's Heart's strengths and weaknesses were both extremely prominent, but the wonderful plot conception and three different Bad Ends were enough to make it a classic.
That said, the reason Kiyoshi Yuuma didn't make it a game with combat or gameplay elements, but instead adopted the authentic visual novel approach—
It was mainly because Mermaid's Heart could only be done this way.
Combat or adding other game elements would diminish the impact of the plot.
Though it scored 28 points, Kiyoshi Yuuma was fairly satisfied with the editors' comments.
Famitsu's game evaluations were already relatively objective.
If it were him, he probably couldn't give Mermaid's Heart a high score for platinum hall of fame selection either.
Seeing the smile appearing at the corner of Kiyoshi Yuuma's mouth, HR Ayase Akane across from him felt somewhat confused.
What's the President's psychology?
Before, when you got a high score of 39 points and were selected for the platinum hall of fame, you weren't satisfied and complained.
This time they gave 28 points, and you're still smiling so happily?!
Ugh!~
No wonder players always feel that Pokeni's games are too emotionally torturous.
Pokeni has been mentally ill starting from the President.