It’s at its best when it wavers from this structure, particularly with its brief appearances from Balan and Lance, the deuteragonist and antagonist. And they all follow the formula to a tee in rapid succession. Also, there are only six characters, four of which follow that formula that strictly. I would argue that its story and characters are distinct enough that it can get away with it. The anime adaption of Angels of Death, another video game, has a formula that is reminiscent of its pixel horror RPG origins-go to a new level, solve a puzzle, beat the boss, unlock a door, repeat. It’s exhausting and I had to start skimming. And-I can’t believe I’m saying this-there is a similar structure with a slight variation AGAIN for each character’s respective ending. This is later ever-so-slightly changed to go to the stage, beat the stage boss, learn the boss’ tragic backstory, repeat. It is a long, plodding laundry list of the same thing over and over and over again: go to the stage, meet the stage’s owner, talk about Balan, repeat. There are some pieces of media that are based on video games that can function okay, but this really isn’t one of them. This story structurally doesn’t work in book format. The premise is reminiscent of the show Infinity Train in that characters go to a fantastical world to solve mental health issues. I hoped that by reading the book I would be able to get some insight into why it didn’t live up to its full potential. 95% of that game has no dialogue or textual story beats or decipherable spoken words, to its intense detriment. So this is effectively a script for content that should have been in the video game Balan Wonderworld but wasn’t.
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