I rarely want to finish a game’s story twice, even if a single run only lasts 3-4 hours, and I know I’ve missed a bunch of stones, but Amarantus amply justifies starting over. Not only is the second playthrough giving you the chance to get to know the character differently – seduce him instead of her, or both; alienate an old friend while developing an uncomfortably close relationship with one , last time, this guy threatened to kill you if you let your ideals get the better of your empathy. Nor is Restart just about revealing what’s really going on in the broader plot, with multiple playthroughs introducing characters and backstories that originally existed in shadow, dancing between the lines of the prose and the delicacy of the character performances.
Amaranth is the story of a political revolution, but revolution can also mean repetition, and repetition is crucial here, not just in learning and “mastering” the small but valuable choices of this brilliant visual novel in order to maximize Good ending, but also in that the recurring scenes with the theme of “repeat” increasingly resonate. Starting over is more than learning what you missed and making less dire decisions. It’s about learning what it means to start over, though it’s hard to say more without spoilers.
Anyway, here is my gorgeous armchair – Walter Benjamin reading Amaranth. You can also play purely to hang out with some brilliant, hurt but not broken people, have ill-advised sex, fight ill-advised, and do all sorts of other stupid things that are always gripping adventure. In this game, all kinds of emotions are at play: desire, joy and pain, outbursts of anger or sadness, as well as one-offs of kindness, sparkling wit, or believably mundane scenarios.
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The game tells the story of a small group of unusual suspects trying to overthrow the tyrant Lord Cauda against the backdrop of a perpetual war with overseas nations. You play as Aric Treysen, whose dissident parents are arrested by Cauda’s thugs in the prologue, and he immediately sets off to the capital to exact revenge. Much of the story is about deciding what kind of revolutionary you want Arik to be — a public usurper, a voice of reason for a bloodless transfer of power, a knife in the shadows — while taking into account the reality that he’s not That was totally revolutionary. He’s a brash twenty-something with no plans other than getting some payoff, and little experience in political organizing, let alone things like fencing or palace infiltration. His role is not to be a resistance hero, although that’s a choice if you make certain decisions, but as a source of narrative momentum.
Well, he has some genuinely supportive and tolerant friends — or at least driven and tenacious allies — who come from all levels of the game’s low-key fantasy society and bring their own moral codes, experiences, and ways of communicating, which It’s also a good thing. Add in piles of baggage and longings, and you can be fulfilled or frustrated, or work your way out of it—with a different but complementary understanding of that person each time. The characters are neatly differentiated both in writing and in the game’s extensive collection, with a balance between modern English dialect and mysterious panache (there’s a pronunciation vocabulary that’s actually relevant to the plot rather than a cutesy appendix) 2D character poses and expressions.
Aric’s closest friend is Mireille: conciliatory, responsible, and very wealthy. She has a way of pushing her hands forward to waist height, which can convey both sisterly concern and passive-aggressiveness. And her crybaby brother, Màrius, is childish, slender, self-deprecating, and surprisingly reserved. Mireille, always on crutches, appears down-to-earth, while Màrius seems to have no idea what to do with his arms while chatting. He wraps them around his head, twists his shirt hem, or presses his palms together like a zealous priest—positions that give the game some of its funniest moments.
Marius is intrigued by Rayanne, a grim and sarcastic street urchin whose sideways glance at players is second only to her capacity for spontaneous violence. She’s the character I was most worried about during the first run, but in some ways, she’s even more vulnerable than Marius. Guardian of the group is the tall Major, an elderly, impassive mercenary whose hands are mostly visible when she salutes or raises her rifle, her soft eyes full of war and Tragic memory. There are others who are just as important as these — shall we say, one whose unique intuition turns the dynamic of the group upside down — but I won’t spoil their introductions.
The game includes dialogue with some or all of these characters set against beautifully sketched and embroidered backdrops, plus a magical guitar soundtrack and some lovely ambient audio to immerse you in forbidden woodlands, echoing stone halls and creaking in the noisy cabin. In these gorgeous, breath-taking spaces, the actors move and move with expressiveness rarely seen in realistic blockbuster games.
Amarantus quietly does amazing things through seemingly simple issues of pacing, framing, and narrative context. Characters move around the screen, look out at you or each other, step into the foreground or wander into corners, speak at different paces, and converse believably with each other (there’s no voice acting, but I don’t think the game needs it). Far from feeling like evidence of limited development resources, repetitive postures and gestures become habits that interpret differently depending on the situation. An easy source of fun is that you’re usually talking to several people at once, and it’s always worth s topping to track everyone’s reactions – Major closes his eyes wearily while Reanne pokes Marius with his finger , Mirielle glances at you for instructions.
You never have much say in the substance of these scenes, and Amarantus is better suited for that. The game only gives you a choice when you’re idle, and all of them are big choices, including the ones that seem perfunctory. Who should you ask to train with? Who did you send to the nearby towns? What exactly are you going to do to Cordart when you meet him? Which budding romantic relationships did you encourage, whose trust did you betray? No matter what you decide, the gist of the plot remains the same – you’ll travel to the same locations in the same order, and as far as I can tell, there’s no premature game over. But the decisions you make greatly affect how the character reacts in subsequent scenes, which in turn shapes the trajectory of Aric himself as a future Che Guevara.
The small number of decisions you can make also allows Amarantus to exist easily and comfortably in your head as a stage machine. I can remember nearly every step I take in every game, and make a direct connection between choices and outcomes, even if they’re hidden in the minutiae of the dialogue.
As a result, the game also allows you to easily grasp the thornier philosophical issues that affect your relationship with various characters and affect them as you hunt down Cordart. For me, replaying this story is like reassembling a broken watch: I know where the key working principles are, and the more I put them together, the more I understand what they’re for. It felt like a definite structure that I could participate in, despite my lack of control over the details, and the many types of fantasies that often drag on forever, leaving you lost in the weeds.
Of course, starting over inevitably means you have to re-read a lot of prose, though Amarantus has a history feature that lets you go around the timeline. The repetition also exposes the game’s slight overreliance on conclusive exposition: many hints and speculation boil over in the final moments, though the story is portraying your opponent, even as you cast Arik as a potential usurper, Lord Cauda Most of the characterization of the character takes place later in the story.
But the knowledge you gain from working through the story once, combined with new characters and elements over repeated playthroughs, also brings fresh meaning and texture to the script. Random thoughts, slight changes in expression, and even the rhythm of silence or dialogue text gradually reveal their relevance in run after run, as if you discovered a hidden trap in a puzzle box that made it impossible for you Hands magically open.
Then there are the recurring themes. Certain spaces and moments in the game, viewed initially out of simple curiosity, take on haunting meaning the second you visit. Not only do they add color to the story, they encourage you to pause and see this revolutionary parable as part of a narrative tradition about power and its overthrow. I’d call Amarantus a watch and a puzzle box, but in that sense it’s more like a cage: an elaborate, revolutionary, but also reactionary frame within which you and your long-suffering friend must carefully Position yourself in it lest it make your choice.
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