The Most Painful RPG

You awaken in a desert, a tower looms in the distance. An angel hands you a gun Peak fiction

Last time an angel told me to pick up a rifle, I got in trouble with the Feds and now I have to wear this ankle monitor.

I never imagined I ever encounter a Japanese game, where shooting God in the face isn't the true ending.

"The story is not THAT confusing" Proceed to tell a completely unintelligible and bizarre story about dudes with fake angel wings and Italian music.

Amateur folklorist here, the Tarantella Melody is called that because of Tarantrism- a culture-bound syndrome in Southern Italy where people bitten by a local wolf spider called the Lycosa Tarantula (yes, the more famous Tarantula's named after this one) would suffer from extreme paroxysms of anger, crying, puking, and maniacal laughter, which could supposedly only be cured by hours or days of frenzied dancing to music (with the tarantella style supposedly having originally developed to cure tarantism). There's speculation that the myth developed from Dionysian/Bacchanal rituals that survived Christianization in the region of Taranto, where the spider and musical style both come from. So the term has an association with madness, violent spasming and twisting (the "distortion" of the body), and the underworld, rebirth, and transformation through Dionysus.

The creators of this franchise are really dedicated to bring weirdness to absolutely unattainable levels.

I guess the moral of this story is: If it ain't baroque, don't fix it.

Hey just a quick note, baroque has another meaning in the English lexicon. Merriam Webster gives the definitition "characterized by grotesqueness, extravagance, complexity, or flamboyance" which seems to be a bit more thematic.

Broke: Kill God. Woke: Embrace God. Bespoke: Restore God’s ability to feel pain while restoring your memory and then make out with God while She wraps you with her tentacles.

Ohh "imitation wings" makes a lot more sense than "imitation wigs" as an equitable item.

The Nerve Tower is one of the best supplementary fan sites for Baroque a lot of effort has gone into it over time.

Baroque as a title actually makes a whole lot of sense and I really appreciate that they chose the name and then used the more typical meaning of the word in the aesthetics of the name. the little white drops you get from killing an enemy? a misshapen pearl, which in itself was one of the original meanings of the word "baroque". the way god is depicted is how (catholic) god is depicted in baroque churches, with long golden spikes representing his divine light et cetera. the grotesques are a strange mix of baroque ornamentation and h. r. giger. the visuals of this game are impeccable and definitely lean into a very baroque depiction of the apocalypse. it's brilliant

The connection of the tarantella to insanity is the (possible) origin of the dance - it was created in response to tarantism, a form of mental illness endemic to the area of Taranto in medieval times, which manifested as uncontrollable dancing. (It was believed to be caused by spider-bites, which is where the word 'tarantula' comes from.)

Gnawing on bones to discover their abilities is something you'd see in a jank indie game from the last 3 years. This was way ahead of its time

I knew from the video's title that it had to be Baroque.

Ah yes, true message from devs. "Perfection is Imperfection and Imperfection is Perfection."

The visual of the impaled archangel is strangely fascinating to me.

This is the best channel for finding absolutely unique and strange games that have this particular quality.

Baroque is also a type of pearl, which explains why the crystals/idea sephira look the way they do! "A baroque pearl is a pearl with an irregular shape. The term “baroque” comes from either the French word ‘baroque’ meaning “irregular shape” or the Portuguese word ‘barroco’ meaning “irregular pearl""

Fun(?) fact: The Japanese word for "nerve" is 神経, formed from the kanji for "god" and a kanji for "pathway" or "meridian." So I think "Nerve Tower" is a play on this.