Don't Take It Personally Babe

Developer: Christine Love & Cohorts
Platforms: PC, Mac and Linux
Genre: Teenage Drama, Slice of Life
Release Date: April 2011

Okay, before we get started here, let me make one thing clear: there is absolutely no reason on God’s green earth that I should even be talking about this game. None. I mean good grief man! This thing is filled with subjects that I not only viscerally hate but anyone reading this that knows me personally will tell you half of the stuff here I mock. A lot. Loudly. Do you think I’m kidding? Here’s a quick list of some of what you can expect;

Teenage Drama
   Weeaboos
   Butchery of the English Language
   ‘Closet Keys’ (TV Tropes explains this one a bit better than I could so here)
   Anviliciousness (Bullying is Wrong Mmkay?)
   Teenage Angst
   Teenage Romance
   An Overly Long Title
   Trying to get people to ‘relax’
…If I get called a ‘Bro’ one more freakin’ time…

So, now that I’ve made myself perfectly clear that this is a game that should make me bash my head into my desk until I am drowning in a sweet, sweet pool of my own blood…God help me…I’m here to report to you that don’t take it personally babe is actually good.

STORY

You play the role of John Rook: a character you might remember from Winter Wolves’ Love and Order. During a self-admitted mid-life crisis following his second divorce, Rook leaves the prosecutor’s office and decides to teach Literature at a private high school in Ontario which is, really, the beginning of a very long gag. It is actually a joke in the game that Rook barely touches anything considered proper education. Instead, he (and you by extension) will be (shudder) helping each member of his class with their romantic lives.

I’ve actually been trying to figure what about this VN make the story stick to me like I did. It can be interpreted many different ways and the author of the game encourages those differences of opinion. Piecing this one together, my best interpretation of this is that the story of this VN is closer to Brave New World than anything, well, positive. For those who aren’t aware, look up Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and just go through the Sparknotes of it. Just pause this review and you can come back to us when you’re ready.

In the VN, Rook’s class is driven constantly by one goal alone: their own personal happiness. Ambition is nearly completely smothered and issues like privacy have ‘evolved’ to mean nothing. Unless their personal dingy is rocked, they’re fine letting their minds rot online and their impulses lead them by the tail. While it seems like typical youth on the surface, there is a hedonism here that is being built for these kids by people who should know better but, frankly, it’s easier to keep them under control that way.

And while the advent of the digital age and social media has a lot do with it, the real problem of it all is the ones that came before – us. Those of us who know better are the same ones allowing the coming generation to mindlessly wallow in their own sense of self-importance and it makes the current interweaving of social media and daily life that much worse.

So on one hand you have a growing group of walking dead and the other group perfectly happy to let it be. If this game is not where we are as a society, it’s where we’re heading and Christine Love, the writer of this VN, has painted a vivid and (in my opinion) terrifying picture of it.

While some of the cast grew on me and others didn’t, there was rarely a moment I wasn’t sympathizing with John Rook. About halfway throughout playing the visual novel, it becomes abundantly clear that John Rook is a stranger in a very strange land not because of his age necessarily, but because of his own moral code that is considered outdated by just about everyone else. What I love about this game is that, despite the choices, Rook will still make his own opinions on whatever situation he is in absolutely clear. He is far from a perfect man, but he constantly keeps his eye on a standard that everyone around him, including his own students, takes great delight in mocking.

The way the story is structured there are a lot of things that will happen regardless of your personal input. But you can control that input and either compromise Rook’s values or stand by them. The lines on what that means aren’t clear and more than once it is easy to pick an option that you think is good without listening to the story in front of you. Getting out of moral grey is hard, very hard, and often times the only soul you can pull from the abyss is your own. This story portrays that concept very well.

Of course, the story isn’t perfect by any means. More than once, Love lets her own views slip into the narrative and it is not for the better. My best example of this, and one I know will only get me into trouble but hey, bring it, is one of the females of the game: Taylor. Taylor is severely screwed up, but in the way that just about everyone in this school is. As the game starts, Taylor and another guy in the class is in the middle of a breakup. Rook has the option of shepherding the young man, Nolan, towards another young man he maybe/kinda likes. If he does, then Taylor antagonizes that relationship to the disgust of just about everyone else who all agrees that, ‘IT IS THE WORST THING EVER! HOW COULD SHE BULLY POOR LITTLE WHAT’S-HIS-FACE AND HIS BOYFRIEND?! IT’S JUST WRONG!’

Now, let’s just put aside the PC junk and be honest with each other for one minute. You don’t even have to reply to me answering this scenario, just be honest to your own heart. Let’s say you were in a relationship: it doesn’t matter the sexual orientation of it – a relationship. Let’s now say that the relationship turns sour and you both breakup. It’s a very bitter breakup and neither of you are very happy with how it turned out. Now, let’s go about a month into the future and you see your former fling not only with someone else…but they’ve done a sexual 180 (if they’re straight, now they’re gay and vise-versa). What do you think? What do you feel?

It isn’t easy and it’s far from simple, isn’t it? I’m not defending bullying fictional or otherwise. What I am saying is that this is an impossible situation for anyone least of all a teenager. And at no time, even on the ‘Gentle’ path, can you say anything other than she’s a sociopathic bitch and the world doesn’t revolve around her (although her comeback to this statement made me love her). Because bullying is wrong, no matter what.

It’s…cheap. And it isn't the only time this happens (coughCharlettecough), which only muddles the overall story for Love's desire to send a message. Outside of a few others instances, the only other serious slip up is the massive plot hole created by the main story line. In the midst of poking fun at Rook's old-school values, one of the students has to leave the school and the class plays it up like a suicide. However, anyone with a teaspoon's worth of common sense would be able to tell immediately something was completely off. Hell, you don't even need common sense: JUST CHECK ROOK'S E-MAIL. The only way it works is if Rook becomes an idiot on the issue which nearly undermines the privacy Aesop altogether because no one is so stupid to believe a bunch of kids when their boss is telling them otherwise.

Luckily the major themes still shine through. Love accomplishes about 95% of what she wants to do, which is a success in my book and to just bring up many of these issues would get other game writers to blush. So beyond those issues, this is definitely a must read.

SHORYUKEN!!!!!

PRESENTATION & GAMEPLAY

The presentation for this game is fairly straightforward. You’ve seen this style of art before and for many of the designs are distinctive for certain characters that bring out different aspects of their personality. Err..let me rephrase that actually; it clicks for certain female characters. The males pretty much lose every time they’re on screen. Outside of fitting into some pretty boy stereotype, they really don’t stand out.

Where the Presentation falls apart is with the Event CGs. I’m sorry but I don’t have any other nice way to say it: the CGs just don’t work. Let’s break it down using what is supposed to be a light scene featuring one of the same-sex couples in the game, Nolan and Akira;

I can appreciate the attempt to highlight these two and their relationship, but my eyes are drawn to the busted anatomy, mix and match color schemes and the odd realization that eyebrows don’t work like that. And it’s not just this CG, it’s pretty much all of them that are plagued by the same issues.

The soundtrack for this one often feels out of place as well: especially if you look at this game like I did. About a third of the way in, I turned the music off outright as it was starting to clash with my reading of the story. Not that the music was bad or poorly done: it just didn’t seem to fit with what Love was trying to deliver in the script.

For all of the weaknesses in Presentation, the Gameplay shines. Verbal interaction is kept to a minimum with you only able to step in and say something at pivotal moments. However up until that point the story is told to you through both what you see in front of you and through the school social media outlets. Part of your job as a teacher is to keep an eye on the feeds to make sure that your class isn’t engaging in questionable antics or online bullying. Through that you learn just as much as you would’ve learned engaging with them directly.

With the story focusing on how the advent of the digital age has changed society, this was a wise and well thought out choice as nearly every conversation you peep into fills in what would otherwise be agonizing plot holes. At the same time it shows you more of both John Rook and yourself. There are certain conversations fully expose not only the voyeuristic aspects of what the digital age allows those in authority to do, but also furthers the hedonistic side of the students. And while I want to try and avoid too many spoilers in this review, all I can say is that there is a conversation at the end of the game with Akira and his Mom that makes a seminar of private messages you have the option of looking into go from bad to worse.

One more thing I noticed with the gameplay was the auto save feature. Although a bit random, I can see how it could work with other VNs down the road. It’s an interesting feature that helps keep the game moving without you having to stop and save along every little point you want to stop at in the chapter. Though it also had its share of quirkiness, for the most part I really appreciated having it there.

...You may leave my office now m'am

REPLAY VALUE

I honestly don’t know if I’m ever going to pick up this VN again. The story is so deep and rich but at the same time, there are pieces in this game that only connect when you put aside all of the fun and happy options and go, ‘Wait…this may not be a good thing’. For me it was a lot like my first viewing of War of the Worlds – the one with Tom Cruise in it. Great movie, but so bleak and crushing on my soul I couldn’t watch it again for…well…I saw it again a few days ago so, yeah, a few days ago.

Some people will be able to play it again, no problem, depending on their view of the characters. For me, it’ll be a while.

OVERALL

don’t take it personally babe is a lot of things for a lot of people...I know this because I Googled it. For me, it evoked a similar reaction I had in reading a scene early on in Brave New World. A bunch of students are touring a facility used for not only artificial insemination but also to raise the Society’s children (because the family unit had been taken down). They’re watching these children imitate sexual acts almost like they’re watching paint dry, except for when one boy freaks out. Everyone around the kid could’ve left him alone; instead the adults decided that there might be something ‘abnormal’ with the child and decided to have him psychologically evaluated to figure out what was wrong with him.

As strange as that moment was, what is horrifying about that scene is that shortly afterward the students and the teacher mocked the past when such things were considered immoral. After all, what’s the point of trying to stop a bunch of kids from amusing themselves? Yeah, that strange realization that I'm not exactly in Kansas anymore...that is it.

This game is an extraordinary question about our future, if not our present. It’s a question about not just who, but what we are in the digital age. Despite a few missteps, between the characters and the world this is a story you have to read to believe. Whatever you take away from it is your business, but I can promise you that you won’t regret playing this game.

Big shout out to a reader who suggested I check this out in my Newswire by the way! And thank you to everyone who has commented in some form or another about this site and what I’m trying to do with it. It just wouldn’t be the same here without you. Even you…yes you.

FINAL SCORE

7/10

DECENT

+ Great use of themes and tropes for the most part
+ Overall story sticks with you
- Art can be hit or miss
- Seriously we get it. Bullying is wrong. Message received
- Even the 'likable' characters can be pretty unlikable