 | ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age. |
 | PAUSE: Know your child; some content may not be right for some kids. |
 | OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age. |
 | NOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age. |
Baroque
- Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2
- Price: $39.99
- Genre: Role Playing
Common Sense Media says
A deep, dark RPG with technical and design issues.
Parents say
Kids say
QUALITY
What parents need to know
Parents need to know that the game contains some fantasy violence with blood shown. Players will use guns and swords to kill monsters, and when the monsters are dead, they can consume the monsters' bones and hearts to gain health and ability boosts. This game offers a full, deep story and that there's a fair amount of reading involved. YouTube generation kids may be too impatient to read through the story and deal with the manual. Also, this is one of the more difficult role playing games ever put on the market. But if you and your child love the story, you'll delegate the time to figure out the puzzles.
What's it about?
BAROQUE is Atlus' unfortunate remake of an old Sega Saturn role-playing game. The best part of this single player disk is the fantasy story that unfolds incrementally as you play. While the story and the writing are key components to video games, this tale (accompanied by stylized background graphics) is the best thing this sad offering has going for it. In Baroque, you'll be taken to a nightmarish world that's been devastated by an evil force called The Blaze. It's not only wreaked massive physical destruction; it's crushed the spirit of the populace as well. The only hope that these people have is their strange fantasies, also known as their baroques.
You'll play Baroque as you play most role-playing games – by collecting items to increase your health or to upgrade your weapons. Store as many as 20 of these collectibles to move from level to level as you play (that said, 20 goodies in your cache aren't enough: you really should be able to store twice that amount or more in your inventory).
Is it any good?
The problem is that you have to deal with lot of the characters to glean the true story, and that's fairly annoying since many of the characters are vague or secretive. You'll be hitting the manual or forums on the Web far too often to make this game worthwhile – unless you fall more on the hardcore side of gaming.
In the Wii version, the camera angles confuse and thwart your movement, and that's being kind. Although you'll swing the Wii remote to slash and cut as you fight, there's no way to block when your monstrous foes attack you. Faces don't really move when they speak, either. In other words, though Baroque has been remade, it hasn't been refined and updated properly. Atlus should have spent far more time to bring this game to the demanding specs of 2008. The upshot? It feels like an old game, albeit one with a compelling premise.
What families can talk about
Families can talk about this game's compelling, sometimes circuitous, story in which a horrible disaster, known as The Blaze, has made life terribly difficult. Does this dark theme make the game difficult to enjoy? You can also discuss the unique background artwork, which recalls many of the graphic novels on the market today. Did you find the puzzles to be maddeningly hard to figure out?
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AGE
There's one character who uses the word "G-dd-mm-t" in every sentence.
The goal of the game is to SHOOT GOD! Multiple times. While there are endings that involve you not killing god, the message that is stamped into your head constantly is "go shoot god."
The main character who isn't the player is known as the archangel (Remember, in Christianity, Judaism and Islam we are taught Archangels are god's messengers). He tells you what to do and gives a weapon.
Now, at this point of the description, you know the kid is going to assume this is a very good guy, and your friend.
Then he starts to say shoot god. But he says it in interesting ways. "Purify the diluted god" and such. He also stresses that this is how to save the world.
Also, something Common Sense does not have badges for, the imagery is very grotesque. Not violent, there's not really blood or anything, but it's certainly disturbing, in fact, I'm 16 and the image on the spine of the game case creeps me out. Characters are distorted humans, some with their heads lodged in their stomached. Everyone's flesh is an ugly brown. One character, if hit, says "Yes, I should just die. DIE DIE DIE." Another character, a big, meaty guy, ends up burying himself, and his body is decaying and shriveled in the ground yet waste up you see him, and he lives. He groans in pain should you hit him. Another recurring character(s) are the littles, winged infants with black holes for their eyes and mouth. It's explained that the gun your character wields shoots the babies into the enemy, the babies expand and both explode and die.
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AGE
Be careful; this is for a niche audience.
Hi there! Listen, before you give this game to anyone you know, make sure you know what kind of RPG's they like. I implore you. The thing about Baroque is that it's from a very specific RPG genre - the Roguelike. Roguelikes are extraordinarily difficult most of the time, and more often than not they feature something called permanent character death, which is exactly what it sounds like. If you die, you need to reroll a new character (or the same you had before) and start from the beginning. These games can be very fun, but they'll be painful to people who don't like the genre. However, Baroque is less punishing in that you can save items for your future clones and your story progress is saved even if you die. Actually, you need to die to advance the story. Still, this will confound players for whom one of the biggest draws of RPG's is amassing power endlessly to eventually become a godlike being. Sorry, I thought I'd get that out of the way. In any case, the delightfully creepy monster design? Not for kids. The themes? Not for kids. Do not be deceived by the T rating: This is not for youngsters. At all.
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AGE
my rating:T-16+
I have this game and it is neat but you need a walkthrough to know what to do.
based on the difficulty and creepiness it is for older teens.
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AGE
not the best...
I played this game and well its not the best. It's really boring and the language can be an issue. They don't say f--- but they do say g-dda---t ALOT!! If thats not an issue than nothing is.
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AGE
Dissapointing
I picked up this game because it was five dollars, looked satisfyingly gothic, and my parents approved. Fabulous, right?
Then, I played for a full week. I went down that ridiculous tower so many times it became a joke and I barely got halfway through. It's a fun game, but repetitive and painfully slow at times. It was certainly worth my five dollars, but not much more.
In respect to the values portrayed, there's really no issue. The main character wants to better himself no matter what, the violence is minimal, the monsters are fantisized. No problem for children.
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| Platforms: | Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2 |
| Available online? | Not available online |
| Genre: | Role Playing |
| Developer: | Atlus |
| Release date: | April 8, 2008 |
| Price: | $39.99 |
| ESRB rating: | T for Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, Tobacco Reference |
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