{Review} The Notebook - To The Underworld And Back Again

"The Notebook - To The Underworld And Back Again" by Thomas Lee

When I wrote my hangups down, it was in the interest of fairness, not to exclude certain games. They are more guidlines than rules. Rules like... oh, I don't know... the dead should stay dead. And it is this rule that "The Notebook - TTUABA" takes and happily snaps into so much kindling in a story that is part Dante's "Divine Comedy", part "The A-Team" and part "Phoenix Wright". Strange combination? You have no idea.

Story
The goddesses son is dead because he picked a fight with a bear who was too high-level for him. As gamers, we've all been there. But things are slightly different if your mom has the power to summon what basically amounts to "Oprheus for hire". The player's party, consisting of the named hero and two supporting characters is summoned to get Allard back from the underworld. But even if you succeed, problems won't end there.

Mechanics
Let me start this part by saying what "The Notebook" is not. A typical JRPG. You can safely ignore most trappings of the genre. Yeah, you have levels and gold and items and item shops, but they are basically vestigial tails, appendices transplanted into the game, I assume, by the engine.
There were two (winnable) fights in my whole playthrough. Most of your progress is made through dialogue.
As I said, I hate reading too much on screen, but you know what makes that better? Plopping down a sign that tells me how many clues I still have to gather. That's the kind of concise feedback that will have me hunt down every last soul on the map and take their... information.
The unique twist is that the game sooner or later transports you a special realm where you have to review and combine your clues.
You know how on "Sherlock" we see what Sherlock sees, get clues as to the connections and feel oh so smart when he walks us through them? That's in the game. You activate two notes, in a clever twist symbolised by the person you got them from, and combine them.
This becomes even more important as you are later asked to put them together in a big picture or use them to refute and confirm assertions. That's where the "Phoenix Wright" part comes in. And though I feel after my playthrough that I may have made the wrong decision and was a bit peeved that the game would not accept my completely logical answers... *ahem* on the whole the system is rock solid.
Another nice mechanic is that if you really screw up, the two other members of your party show up to chew you out for your stupid, boneheaded, idiotic death. The fact that they do it using Monty Python references and lampshade their apparent blandness in the actual game took some of the sting from their remarks and actually had me clap my hands in delight. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a good meta-joke.
But please, implement some "Are you sure?" windows, if your key to speed up dialogue is the same as the one for making choices...

Presentation
There is not much to say in this department, it's an RPG Maker game, you know what they look like. It's not from graphics or even music that "The Notebook" gets its unique character, but from its writing and unique mechanics.
One minor hiccup was when I travelled to the underworld in a magic tower and went outside. The cheery music was not fazed by the huge lake of molten lava in the slightest but kept playing along merrily. Other than that, everything else that was done to create atmosphere was spot on.

On the whole...
Give this one a try. Yes, even if you don't like reading a lot, yes, even if you don't like JRPGs. Give it a few minutes, remember to save (!) and you will have a rather unique experience, an RPG that takes the old adventure approach to combinig items and applies it to crucial information. Make a decision that will change the way the (under-)world works... and live with it.
___

Link: http://contest.gamedevfort.com/submission/258#.Vc9ie_ntlBc

Dev: Thomas Lee

Time Played: 90 minutes

Got My Vote? Yes. If a game can make me replay 10 minutes of progress I lost to bad saving habits and a stupid decision, it has certainly earned it.