(My apologies if I get stuff wrong I haven’t played the game in ages I don’t have my pc right now)
I’m going to rant a lot, scroll now there will be dark subject matter including but not limited too: PTSD, sociopathy, sexual abuse, murder, etc. you have been warned.
I read a Reddit post about jackets mental conditioning and now I’m going to yap
From the first couple of moments in hotline Miami, jacket is implied to have a troubled past and to have done “some terrible things..." as stated by Don Juan, jacket is very well implied to have some kind of mental illness or something similar, the three people in the room upon the first visit all react in different ways, in my own interpretation at least, Don Juan is the personification of what jacket WANTS to believe, what he wishes was real, how he wishes things could be, Richard is seemingly the ugly truth, a horrible, gnawing thought in the back of jackets mind, the truth he hates, yet thanks to jackets delusions, Richard is still cryptic, he never gives a single direct answer to jacket, instead leaving him to suffer in his own hellscape of a mind, and then the iconic 4 questions: “Do you like hurting other people?
Who is leaving messages on your answering machine?
Why are we having this conversation?”, to me, Richard has always been the horrific knowledge of your own faults you can’t own up to, and then Rasmus, rasmus is so aggressive and hostile towards jacket, seemingly representing self doubt, survivors guilt, and hatred of the self: “why did you come back here? You’re not a nice person, are you? You make me sick!”, Rasmus and the other two are all personifications of jackets own warped and shattered mind, they all show some kind of level of pity, disgust, or disappointment with jacket, none of them are happy, they’re simply what he wants to think, and we enter the first mission:
It’s a fairly simple mission, slaughter the Russian mobsters, get the briefcase, kill the men from the train, and leave. But when you finally dispose of the briefcase, a homeless man approaches, seemingly panicked and angered at jacket, or more accurately, someone intruding on his camp spot, jacket proceeds to knock the man onto the ground, steal the man’s baseball bat, and mercilessly, brutally, and painfully beats the man’s skull inward, once the job is done, jacket tries to leave the corpse, only to puke onto the pavement, it’s possible that the adrenaline, or realization, or simply the clusterfuck of emotions all climax, after leaving, jacket is worn down seemingly, he stops by a convenience store, to which a humble, gentle and happy bearded man greets jacket, seemingly knowing him, implying something with “losing your girlfriend”, the man lets jacket get the six pack for free.
April 8th, 1989 Miami Florida. Upon
Leaving the room in the intro, you can read a message from 50 blessings that’s mostly just them thanking jacket for subscribing to the newsletter. The phone is picked up to receive the following message:
“Hello, it’s ’Linda’ . . . I need a babysitter right away. Got a few kids that need to be disciplined here. I’m at east 7th street. Make sure you have a long talk with them, I really need someone to get through to these rascals. And like last time . . . Please be discrete!”
It begins, the level is two floors with the first being a simple entryway and stairs, after killing the mobsters you are once more told to
It’s not important to my understanding, however the stark contrast between the pumped hyper and violent music in the level to the haunting silence of your sins quickly followed by a relaxed lo fi esque song.. feels wrong, like as if you simply realized what you just did and yet, never understood at the same time—is the best way I can describe the vibe from that. Anyways moving on
Jacket pulls into a pizza shop, inside there’s a man in glasses eating his own cheesy Italian disc, as jacket walks to the cashier it’s revealed—hey, it’s the guy from last time! The following (one-sided) conversation ensues:
“Hi there, welcome! Oh, you don’t need to order, your pizza’s already done. Had a feelin you were on your way here, heh . . . Well, let’s just leave it at that for now, shall we? Don’t worrying about paying,
Trust me, that last part is gonna be really important, really, REALLY fucking important later. Jacket takes the pizza and promptly leaves.
Once more leaving the room, jacket acquires the phone.
“ This is ‘Thomas’ from the methadone clinic. We’ve scheduled a short meeting for you tonight. We’re at NW 184th street, apt 105. And don’t worry . . . We know discretion is of importance to our clients.”
The level is a two floor and fairly easy, there isn’t much to comment on at this point.
To purchase a film, well would you look at that, it’s the bearded man again! The following conversation ensues:
“Hey dude! Good to see you again! Did you hear about the ‘massacre’ the other night? A bunch of Ruskies I heard, no loss, if you ask me! They say some maniac wearing a rubber mask did it! Sounds like a scene straight from a slasher flick, heh! Oh yeah, k have the perfect film for you! The one on the desk. . . Take it!
Ok so important thing (major spoilers ahead) jackets brain seems much more obviously fragmented, in this scene especially, it feels painfully obvious and almost uncanny that every single night, jacket is the only one to arrive in the store, and always gets free things, not to mention the same exactly guy always at the same exact job? It doesn’t make much sense. I interpret this as jacket trying to find comfort in the last happy thing he had, HAD is the key word, but I’ll get to that later.
Im not gonna finish this so im just posting it now
