[DCB] SANABI

11 4月 2024

Your life was ours, which is with you. Go on your journey. We go too.

Growing Up With Cyberpunk

When I see neon lights, floating cars, skyscrapers advertising dating agencies, hackers with magical screens that appear with the snap of a finger, and worst of all, rickshaw carts on a busy street, I get a little nauseous from all the deja vu.

Cyberpunk has always been the moralistic writer's shorthand for authoritarian overlords and evil mega-corporations. I've played a few games where the setting and politics are taken for granted: it introduces a noir-like atmosphere and presents a simple opposition dynamic of the little guy versus the big corporations. The archetypes in the setting make it easy for storytellers and fans to roleplay, but I can get a little irritated when nothing new is introduced.

At first glance, SANABI seems vulnerable to this criticism. Once you get past the poorly translated tutorial, you are introduced to an angry father-soldier with a bionic arm who wants to take on a megacorporation that killed his daughter. We see him killing those damn evil businessmen in rapid succession, and even the gameplay reflects this manic progression by starting with a big bang: just minutes after the tutorial, you're fighting a boss that teleports between different platforms, secretly serving as the real tutorial on how to hook his arm to different platforms. While I enjoyed the novelty of the gameplay, my first impressions were pretty bad: I thought I was going to play an action-platformer like MegaMan with edgy cutscenes and big corporate conspiracies.

But then, the game threw me a curveball: while infiltrating a city owned by a mega corporation, the protagonist rescues a girl named Mari who seems to know more about what happened to the city than he does. It was then I realized I was not playing some ordinary cyberpunk title -- I was playing cyberpunk Last of Us.

Banter in the City That Never Sleeps

Being a pseudo-dad in this game is both a good and bad thing.

The game wants you to love the fragile relationship between the protagonist and Mari. After a few platforming sections, the game will interrupt the gameplay with cutscenes of Mari goofing off and the protagonist grumbling. The protagonist doesn't take Mari seriously because she's oblivious to the dangers around her, but Mari tries her best to be the buddy he needs.

This back and forth in theory is solid in concept. However, the game has a few things going against it. For one, it has a poor English translation riddled with typos and missing words. I don't know Korean, so I can't vouch for its accuracy, but it's obvious that the translation was done by someone unfamiliar with the English language as the dialogue suffers from awkward fluency, a lack of character voice, and inappropriate use of slang. A proofreader with a penchant for language could have fixed many of the problems and made the game more enjoyable to read.

But even if the prose were smoother to read, I think there are just too many of these scenes. There are only five chapters in the game, and it took me about 13 hours to finish (most players should finish the game in 8 with the right configuration; more on that later), but I feel worn out by the pacing. It sucks to be in the gameplay zone only to stop to read that Mari did an oopsie and the protagonist says "don't do that". The repetitive and intrusive nature of their "are they family or what" antics really put a damper on the first few hours of the game for me.

This is unfortunate because I'm impressed by the amount of original assets and animations that make them feel alive. Mari likes to plan with chalkboards during cutscenes and there are many unique sprite animations of the protagonist beating up a new robot. I also quite like Mari riding on her tiny little robot and him just following the player's actions -- it's just very cute.

In fact, I wish the developers had focused more on these little details than on the amount of cutscenes. I learn more about their relationship through their actions, not their hijinks. I understand that the emotional arc of this game depends entirely on their relationship, but the quantity of scenes doesn't always match the quality. This is likely a symptom of a game that is too self-aware of its own flaws and feels the need to overcorrect...

Parenting in the Dystopian Future

If we have to separate the good scenes from the bad ones, there is one consistent thread that makes the good ones work for me: parenthood (or the lack thereof).

The best writing in the game exploits the fact they can't ever reach out to each other. The protagonist is often assaulted with dreams of him playing with his daughter, so he sees Mari as a proxy daughter of sorts. Mari obviously doesn't like that because it just feels artificial and clichéd, even though she clearly wants a father figure.

This tension is incredibly fascinating because it speaks to different kinds of loneliness that feel like they could resolve each other but are actually incompatible. The protagonist knows that he can't be a good father, and Mari herself realizes that she can't be a good daughter. Their roleplaying sucks because they don't feel like they are allowed to have a second chance, even if they want one. Underneath every good line there is an ounce of guilty knowledge that they cannot be there for each other.

And that's the good stuff: we see many opportunities for second chances throughout the game. Imagine a scene where the protagonist could have adopted a new daughter. Mari could also have gained a new role model. However, they are only imaginary promises concocted by the player as they experience the narrative of the game. We want these two characters to have a bright future together, but their deep-seated traumas and the political implications of the setting prevent them from developing a truly organic and real relationship.

This elision makes their relationship much stronger and more believable as a parent-child relationship. Their conversations remind me of my own awkward conversations with my parents; we care about each other, but we don't know how to talk to each other. There's no getting through or pure understanding of each other -- barriers exist, thoughts are mistranslated, and parents can't help but feel the need to protect their young while invading their privacy. This is a difficult situation where no one is right or wrong, and I think that sums up the dynamics of parenting quite well.

I like this approach to parenting stories because I often think about the other paths I or my parents could have taken if we'd been better communicators. The SANABI protagonists are not great communicators either and they care for each other. This is not only a recipe for good interactions but a pretty realistic portrayal of how parents and children have it tough. I can see people writing long video essay scripts about how much they identify with these characters.

It's just very good character writing.

Ludokino Platformer (Sometimes)

As for the gameplay, I enjoy a platforming challenge or two in the style of Celeste. The level design reminds me of that game: its wide spaces and different ways to approach openings are great introductory principles for platformers with a bit of spice.

The main gimmick of the game is the chained arm that hooks the protagonist onto platforms. Most of the challenge, then, revolves around the kinds of platforms the player can latch on: moving platforms, cars that can be pushed, carriages that pass through restricted zones, etc. Interestingly, the game doesn't have a stage selection screen or any sort of world hub; it's all stages and cutscenes, which I find refreshing. I like it when a game cuts out the bullshit and makes you want to keep playing it.

Each chapter also has its own unique challenges that don't actually get elaborated or reiterated in later chapters, which I find interesting. When the first chapter introduced gauntlet-like rooms where you have to take down enemies in order to advance to the next room, I was surprised how they didn't really appear after that. It gives every level its own flavor, so to speak.

However, each chapter has a boss fight that doesn't feel great to play, and these fights are the reason I often spend more hours grinding than the average player. I play the game with a controller, which is not the most precise way to swing your character around. And it's obvious that the bosses are designed for people playing with a mouse and keyboard: they teleport all over the screen and often require precise inputs to dodge or attack. Not great when the auto-aiming, even when turned off, still finds ways to screw you over.

Aside from the nasty controls, these bosses are pretty tanky for a platformer. These bosses can go on for minutes with few to no checkpoints. While the fights look cool, they take forever to complete, and I find my hands aching after each successful boss encounter.

I particularly dislike the chapter 4 boss, the Firebird. You have to jump on floating platforms ala Super Smash Brothers map design while the boss shoots guns and bombs at you. Their attacks also take a while to complete, so I often find myself waiting before jumping to my death and restarting the rather long fight.

I also sometimes found myself wishing the camera was bigger or followed me better. Even though the game is 16:9, the rooms don't follow that ratio, and they follow the player character whenever they transition to a screen. This is fine most of the time, but there are a few occasions where I have to take a leap of faith and hope I end up on a platform at the bottom. The camera is clearly designed for horizontal traversal, not vertical, and maps with some verticality feel off at times.

There are moments of genius, especially in the final chapter, that make the gameplay shine though. Let's just say that the final challenge of the game sure feels like it's a take on Celeste's Summit level and it feels great, especially when you get snippets of the backstory that pump you up for even more challenges.

As a result, I found the gameplay to quickly swing between incredible (it fits the mood and stakes of the story) and awkward (the timing can be way too tight for controller users).It all comes down to momentum: the best stages give you a few obstacles to grind and make you better at the game, so you can fly through the trivial stages much faster.

The Ending and Sanabi

While writing about the game, I realized that I'm more critical of the game than I am of its positive qualities. And yet, I still like the game. I think, for better or worse, everything in the gameplay and narrative serves as buildup to one of the most impressive endgame sequences.

In particular, I think the plot twists are quite effective because they play on how the player would identify with the protagonist and are already truths found within the setting. His motivations evolve from simple revenge to resonate with the implications of the setting. The final sequence redefines his motivations for the player, and I was definitely most engaged with his characterization and relationship to the setting after that.

The concept of Sanabi is worth pointing out in this regard: we're told several times throughout the game that they're a terrorist organization that killed his daughter. It works as a kind of Godot, a refrain that keeps him going to kill. But even early on, not everything about Sanabi matches up. The more the protagonist (and the player) pieces Sanabi together, the more it doesn't seem to be what people say it is. It complicates the protagonist's motivations, making his revenge look even more nihilistic and absurd.

However, the game plays a fast one at the very end: his determination to take on Sanabi is not misguided at all but comes from a real place. We just simply don't know what this "real place" is until the very end of the game. Once we do, the protagonist becomes one of the best realized characters who commits to one goal and one goal only.

I like this approach a lot because a hack writer like me would take the easy way out and say Sanabi isn't real. The player would feel like shit and wonder what the hell they were playing. SANABI takes the more graceful approach: the player reaffirms the protagonist's ethos in a different light and helps him get closer to the truth of Sanabi.

The real Sanabi summarizes his experiences with family life, his working life as a soldier, his approach to trauma and grief, and how he could've done more as a father. It makes me admire him as a character full of resolve and affection, a far cry from a grieving hard-boiled father who just wants to kill.

The ending rewrote my memories of the game as a clumsy title with unpolished gameplay and clunky storytelling. I was hit with some great cutscene direction that made me sniffle a little. Whenever the topic of SANABI comes up, I just think about how great the ending is and what it did with the concept of the title.

Despite the game's flaws, I wish more people would play SANABI. The final sequence is worth experiencing at least once. And the game is short enough that it doesn't feel like it can burn people out. It's a great title that focuses on the constant worries of parenting in a cyberpunk buddy cop setting, and I can see people calling it their new favorite in the coming months.

The game is available on Steam and it goes on sale every now and then. This game was recommended by opernlied as part of the [#jp_media community backlog](../posts/2024-04-10-The Discord Community Backlog.html).