This sentiment also extends to the entire Short Peace package, in which individual ambitions are collected and accelerated with their inclusion as a larger project. Four different directors contributed four different films, plus an additional videogame designed by Tokyo Jungle’s Crispy Inc. and written by Grasshopper Manufacture’s energetic enigma, Goichi “Suda 51” Suda. Their assigned theme, and indeed the only identifiable guiding light, was “Japan.” Ideally, every piece of the project would represent a different slice of culture from its resident auteur.
While Ranko Tsukigime’s Longest Day is a separate download from the four animated pieces, they’re both delivered and priced as part of the same package. Longest Day is its own game with its requisite set of trophies, while Short Peace exists as a separate entity under the PlayStation 3’s Games tab. The rub is that the complete package, and the only way any of Short Peace is sold, is $40. Granted, all of the animated films are quite good – Possessions was even nominated for an Academy Award in Best Animated Short Film – but it’s an odd proposition for a videogame, especially with Longest Day being the weakest of the bunch.
The short films, which add up to a little over an hour, are by far the most interesting and appealing part of the package.
Possessions, directed by Shuhei Morita, details a weary traveler looking for refuge amidst a rainstorm. He makes his way to a shelter deep in the woods and finds himself exposed to a wonder of surreal encounters populating the otherwise unassuming and homely looking shack. The quality of the animation is striking, with sequences that I could have sworn were composed of computer generated effects, thanks to some rather spectacular work with perspective. It presents a look in stark contrast to the ultra-modern, urban settings typically synonymous with popular Japanese animation, and even relayed a subtle sense of inner peace with its conclusion.
Combustible breaks away from the contemplative style of Possessions with a shared tale between two forbidden teenage admirers. A well-to-do girl harbors a fondness for one of her more reckless adolescent neighbors, one that is indeed returned by the brash young man. Pressing themes of loyalty, longing, and loss against the backdrop of village-consuming inferno pushes its protagonists toward a sullen resolution, though not one that loses any of its impact on the audience. All of the films have merit, but Combustible was my favorite of the four. I was delighted to find it came from Katsuhiro Otomo, better known as the director of Akira.
Gambo, from Hiroaki Ando, is the most direct and emotionally exhilarating of the bunch, detailing the plight of a small village and its relationship with mystical creatures. A terrifying demon is wreaking havoc on a village, abducting women to facilitate presumed demon procreation. A small girl wanders off and seeks aid from an angelic white bear, transitioning to a dynamic relationship between the girl and the bear as the bear engages the demon. Gambo isn’t shy in its bloodthirsty ferocity, depicting the honest horrors of combat with everything on the line.
A Farewell to Weapons is the longest of the package, clocking at almost a half hour. One of the most interesting aspects of short films is their reluctance to engage in any sort of over world building, instead leaving visual clues for the view to fill in the blanks. A Farewell to Weapons performs this task admirably, depicting a harsh yet cheerful post-apocalyptic future where armed cleanup squads infiltrate fallen cities on a mission to exterminate any remaining autonomous armaments. Conflict arrives when the close-knit squad finds their weaponry outmatched, and the ensuing chaos is both affecting and entertaining. A Farewell to Weapons is directed by Hajime Katoki, who I had been a fan of since his work on Virtual On.
This brings us to Ranko Tsukigime’s Longest Day, which kicks off with an animated short of its own. Ranko Tsukigime appears to be a normal high school girl, chatting with friends and making plans for karaoke sometime during the upcoming weekend. We learn her father owns a myriad of parking meters, and she appears to moonlight as a meter maid, collecting tolls for her father’s business. Inevitably her work as a meter maid appears to be a cover for her secret life as a hired assassin – and her ultimate target is her father.
Longest Day is an unabashed Japanese product from minute one. It breaks down into a still-frame dialogue scene, which not only tells you to use the “cross button,” but to please be patient because the actual game will begin shortly. Coupled with a rotating cast of surreal characters slowly incorporated from Longest Day’s opening cinematic, it’s a neat and energetic take on the oft-used trope of the secret lives of school girls.
As an actual game, Longest Day barely gets past its own fundamentals. Seven of its ten levels subscribe to the runner genre popularized by Bit.Trip.Runner and Canabalt. Ranko is in constant pursuit by a horrifying legion of literal arms that will surely catch her if she makes too many mistakes. Damage isn’t taken by collisions with enemies, but rather passed on as a means of slower her down. Slashing enemies builds into an ammunition meter, which can be used to temporarily ward off the legion of hands if they get too close.
Some flare is added with the way Ranko’s attacks cascade into additional enemies. Each successful hit jettisons a brief burst of lightning that typically ricochets into everything in her immediate surroundings. This makes taking down enemies a breeze, assuming you’re skilled enough to make proper contact. It’s also a satisfying visual bonanza, with every color of the rainbow star-bursting out of enemies upon successful obliteration.
Longest Day’s problem lies with its overt lack of challenge. Levels occasionally deviate from their “run to the end” goal by tasking Ranko to kill everything in the immediate area or locate a specific treasure box, but, really that’s it. Those sequences only arrive once each, and at seven levels that typically last no longer than three minutes, there’s not much incentive to press onward. Sure, you could spend time blazing through each level’s divergent paths to unlock concept art, but the game’s mechanics aren’t nuanced enough to generate interest in a repeat performance. It’s fun, once – and only kind of.
Longest Day’s boss battles explore separate genres, and even these aren’t much of an improvement. A brief sidescrolling shooter against a giant dragon is everything but complicated, and a 2D hybrid of professional wrestling combined with the original Mario Bros. game is more aggravating than engaging. The lone exception comes with boss battle against Night and Day, where Ranko has to escalate a series of obtuse platforms while her attackers run around and occasionally render themselves vulnerable. Even with these sequences included, however, you’d be hard pressed to make the entirety of Longest Day last more than an hour.
I can sort of see the theme of Japan inside Longest Day’s visual punch. It’s wild and crazy, and the colorful explosions and insane non-sequiturs vaguely remind me of the night I spent wandering through Akihabara with severe sleep deprivation. Longest Day doesn’t execute its impression of Japanese culture with the subtlety or grace of its peers, but perhaps that’s its place as the long videogame of the bunch. It’s intensely weird, exists purely in the moment, and it’s over before you really had a firm grasp on what happened. If Suda51 and the folks at Crispy were trying to distill an inebriated karaoke night into videogame form, they nailed it.
On the other and, Longest Day really isn’t much fun. The technical execution and art direction call to mind a few latent Japanese PlayStation One classics, and not too terribly unlike Incredible Crisis or Pepsiman. Surreal weirdness had a more casual acceptance in the late 90’s when games were still largely constructed as an abstract of larger ideas. Abiding by that philosophy, Longest Day doesn’t have much of a place in 2014. It’s pretty and it’s strange, but that’s about it.
