Odious Manly Genuflection With Terrible Fury: One True Lamentation is a visual novel. Actually, maybe it's better to call it a parody of the visual novel genre. Or, is it a deconstruction of the genre? Is it anything at all, aside from a weird game? Can it even be called a game? Let's answer a few of these questions.
OMGWTFOTL is a visual novel, for the loosest use of the definition. First of all, the game is really, really short, as it can be beaten in 10 minutes. In comparison, don't take it personally babe, it just ain't your story takes 2 hours. Katawa Shoujo takes 10 hours to finish all the routes. And professionally made visual novels, such as Clannad can take twice as long, or even thrice as long as Katawa Shoujo! So basically, OMGWTFOTL can best be called a visual short story, though such a genre does not technically exist outside the Freeware scene. This makes it, technically, a game, albeit a short one.
The main purpose of a visual novel is to tell a story. Does OMGWTFOTL tell a story? Well, yes, surprisingly enough. There's an unnamed protagonist, and he's confronting his nemesis, Osaka Bancho, the man who raped the protagonist's sister and scooped out his best friend's eyes. The protagonist is, at first, overpowered by Osaka, but by the player's choice, can either overpower him with quick thinking and dirty fighting, ask Karl Goch to help him, or suddenly fall in love with Osaka Bancho, when the two commit lover's suicide. Or he can genuflect, which is a surefire way to end the game and get the 'bad ending'.
The 'best ending' is obtained by defeating Osaka Bancho via fighting dirty. Halfway through the game, the story of Osaka Bancho ends by way of the protagonist eating his face, then reminiscing about some guy called Kanagawa Bancho and his misadventures. Inmediately, Kanagawa takes over the game, and offers the player a choice between two new stories: one about a romance with a childhood friend, or one about tentacle rape. The childhood friend choice leads to the best ending.
The game proceeds to tell a second story. There's two kids, a boy and a girl. The boy and the girl are putting up some decorations for an upcoming school carnival, when she falls off a ladder. The boy rescues her, and she immediately confesses her love to him. Then they make out. The end. Or he can go crazy, knock her out, and assault a military base wielding nothing but a katana, while nude. Choice is yours.
So, the story is there, wacky as it is. So, the story is a comedy. Sometimes it's black comedy, sometimes it's not. But the game, is it a parody?
Well, first, we need to ask ourselves, were it a parody, what is it parodying? Well, we could make a case that it parodies short, poorly made Freeware visual novels, but let's ask ourselves a question: what would the point of such an action be? Also, if one were to look at the writing, one would see that, aside from the story of the two childhood friends, there is nothing here that is normally included in visual novels. So, is this game a parody of short freeware visual 'novels'?
The game is a comedy, with some parody elements here or there, but mostly it's an audacious comedy. It's a comedic romp about revenge, honor, love, and passion. It's a farce about the unrestrained passions that lead men to do the weird things we do, like beat up a guy to a bloody pulp or assault an army base while in the nude. Or, we can just say it's a Weird Japanese Thing and call it a day. That works just as well.
OMGWTFOTL is a visual novel, for the loosest use of the definition. First of all, the game is really, really short, as it can be beaten in 10 minutes. In comparison, don't take it personally babe, it just ain't your story takes 2 hours. Katawa Shoujo takes 10 hours to finish all the routes. And professionally made visual novels, such as Clannad can take twice as long, or even thrice as long as Katawa Shoujo! So basically, OMGWTFOTL can best be called a visual short story, though such a genre does not technically exist outside the Freeware scene. This makes it, technically, a game, albeit a short one.
The main purpose of a visual novel is to tell a story. Does OMGWTFOTL tell a story? Well, yes, surprisingly enough. There's an unnamed protagonist, and he's confronting his nemesis, Osaka Bancho, the man who raped the protagonist's sister and scooped out his best friend's eyes. The protagonist is, at first, overpowered by Osaka, but by the player's choice, can either overpower him with quick thinking and dirty fighting, ask Karl Goch to help him, or suddenly fall in love with Osaka Bancho, when the two commit lover's suicide. Or he can genuflect, which is a surefire way to end the game and get the 'bad ending'.
The 'best ending' is obtained by defeating Osaka Bancho via fighting dirty. Halfway through the game, the story of Osaka Bancho ends by way of the protagonist eating his face, then reminiscing about some guy called Kanagawa Bancho and his misadventures. Inmediately, Kanagawa takes over the game, and offers the player a choice between two new stories: one about a romance with a childhood friend, or one about tentacle rape. The childhood friend choice leads to the best ending.
The game proceeds to tell a second story. There's two kids, a boy and a girl. The boy and the girl are putting up some decorations for an upcoming school carnival, when she falls off a ladder. The boy rescues her, and she immediately confesses her love to him. Then they make out. The end. Or he can go crazy, knock her out, and assault a military base wielding nothing but a katana, while nude. Choice is yours.
So, the story is there, wacky as it is. So, the story is a comedy. Sometimes it's black comedy, sometimes it's not. But the game, is it a parody?
Well, first, we need to ask ourselves, were it a parody, what is it parodying? Well, we could make a case that it parodies short, poorly made Freeware visual novels, but let's ask ourselves a question: what would the point of such an action be? Also, if one were to look at the writing, one would see that, aside from the story of the two childhood friends, there is nothing here that is normally included in visual novels. So, is this game a parody of short freeware visual 'novels'?
The game is a comedy, with some parody elements here or there, but mostly it's an audacious comedy. It's a comedic romp about revenge, honor, love, and passion. It's a farce about the unrestrained passions that lead men to do the weird things we do, like beat up a guy to a bloody pulp or assault an army base while in the nude. Or, we can just say it's a Weird Japanese Thing and call it a day. That works just as well.
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