PaigeFTW: It’s All A Bad Romance in ‘Norn9’
I recognize that my particular taste in games — being quite maidenly, at times — may not be well suited for StreetPulse’s audience.
Still, there’s something to be said about Norn9: Vars Commons.
This obscure PlayStation Vita otome game released quietly in November to little mainstream fanfare, but it didn’t need any. Norn9 assumes that its audience is deadly serious about following crazy love stories to their bewildering ends.
I am this audience, exactly.
The labyrinthine and honestly mediocre plot follows three girls and nine boys, so-called saviors of humanity, all with fantastical X-Men-esque powers. But all that comes second to more immediate issues of teenage love — why won’t Senri open up to Koharu? Why does Heishi make Nanami feel this strange warmth in her chest?
That all sounds pretty typical so far, for a Japanese dating sim.
Here’s where the game gets bad, though: these are some horrible love stories.
The kind, nurturing Masamune, for example, decides that the only way to save Koharu from self-destruction is to wipe her memories, kidnap her, lie to her and then marry her. She is, of course, delighted by this turn of events because she has no memory.
And that’s Masamune’s good ending.
Like, holy crap.
This is a whole cast full of drama, though. Sakuya is wildly, unhealthily obsessed with Mikoto. Ron is a murderer who gets to start fresh sans punishment because he loves Nanami.
Now, nothing is wrong with portraying problematic romances in fiction, but these are idealized love stories, where you are, in fact, supposed to find these sociopathic displays of affection to be the pinnacles of romance.
There is no small measure of irony that these kinds of crazy-ass love stories flourish in the pick-your-own-romance genre.
I hate to say it, but you’re better off finding digital love in something like Dragon Age: Inquisition, where you can have a serious discussion about BDSM and the importance of consent with Iron Bull.
