Itâs funny⊠Ramb refer to the Mantle game as being more âfreeâ than the restrictive and railroady âLegend of Tennaâ. Calling it âthe original game, where you decide what to doâ is obviously supposed to call into mind Undertale, and so do the designs of the enemies.
But⊠how âfreeâ is it, really?
Tenna removed the sword-based combat and replaced it with more âwholesomeâ activities like puzzles and quizzes that progress in a fairly-linear order but⊠the âoriginal gameâ was nothing but combat. Fighting is something you have no choice but to do if you want to progress the game. In fact, you have to literally follow orders the game tells you.
This is obviously a huge contrast to Undertale, and Deltarune's Weird Route, as well as the Dragon Blazerz game that seems to have been the in-universe inspiration to this game (as well as kind of an Undertale parallel in its own right).
All of these feature a choice between being a Horrible Murderbastard and solving conflicts through other means to some degree. The Mantle Game is a one where you have to be violent, you basically donât have a choice.
Sure, I guess you can go to any screen youâd like and decide to fight the enemies in whatever order you want⊠but by this metric, even âLegend of Tennaâ had some degree of non-linearity in terms of which puzzles you do when or the order you pick up keys/take photos. I guess comparatively, Mantle has more freedom of movement, but it also had it's own progression-based roadblocks.
Even when you can upgrade your sword to go âout of boundsâ in the Mantle Game, thereâs really only one thing to find and one thing to do there.
If anything, you can argue that Tennaâs game is a lot more âfreeâ, because Tenna replaced the in-game combat with regular Deltarune battles⊠which do allow you to choose between different violent and non-violent options.
Iâve often said that Deltaruneâs central theme is less âyour choices donât matterâ and more like âdo your choices matter?â, "what makes your choices matter?" and this feels like an extension of that. How many roadblocks does a game need before it starts feeling truly railroady?
How do games sell you the illusion of freedom, and what do they need to do to make it truly convincing?
Does a game that allows you to do a violence actually feel more âfreeâ than non-violent game, even if theyâre both equally restrictive in terms of your interactions?
And of course, neither of these games have any ounce of âFreedomâ from Krisâ perspective. Because violence or pacifism, puzzles or swords, they never get to be the one in control.
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