Established by Yōichi Yamaguchi, FlipFlop was active between the years 1994 and 2000, focusing almost exclusively on educational PC game software. The studio is best known in Japan for its Neo Atlas trilogy, a series expanding on the 1991 origina which Yamaguchi designed while he was an employee at ArtDink.
Their first console title, Topolo, was a 1996 partnership with Yamaguchi's former studio, who helped publishing it. Its concept is built around the idea of play in a child’s bedroom setting, using magical blocks to create creatures that can battle against one another in arenas. While experimental and, in some regards, unfinished, the degree of customization and technology which animates the player's creations must nevertheless be recognized. You also won't find a friendlier cover than this.
:// AGE — 24
:// OCCUPATION — beat cop / undercover cop
:// CLASS — elysium native
>> LOADING DEVELOPMENT …
:// MODIFICATIONS —
out of lack of money alone, noeul doesn’t have any personal augmentations. any money he did manage to save up went towards any augmentations he found necessary for his little sister instead. as a result, all of noeul’s current augmentations were added and paid for by the station out of necessity.
cyberoptic camera: neo seoul’s answer to the police body camera’s of yore, these are required for all officers to install. technically, they’re supposed to keep it on at all times on-duty, indicated by a little red light glowing on the skin in the corner of their eye. when on, it records everything he see’s and uploads it all to the precinct’s cloud. when he was chosen to undercover, they upgraded the camera, allowing the red light to be off even while he’s recording.
hidden built-in compartment: again, something he was given after his undercover assignment, the augmentation replaces part of his upper leg with a small metallic compartment, allowing him to stow away his gun. it acts as an undetectable holster, as his skin was placed over the metallic door to disguise it naturally. to open the compartment, he has a small trigger behind his right ear that will activate only when he places his right hand’s index finger on it for one second. this allows for easy access and ensures no one else aside from himself can accidentally (or purposefully) open it.
cyberaudio: implemented as built-in chips into both of his ears and yet again something that was given after his latest assignment, this augmentation grants him a wider radius of hearing, as well as improving his sound recognition. he’s better able to distinguish wind or other odd sounds from actual human footsteps, for example, and his hearing radius has expanded to as far as he can see, though the sound gets slightly muddled and harder to recognize the farther it is. but should he need to, he is able to adjust the radius if he wants to make it smaller and his hearing more accurate as well.
radio link: another required installation for officers, the radio link replaces the walkie talkies of days past. it’s an upgraded feature of his cyberaudio augmentation chips, only audible in his right ear and can be toggled on/off by a fingerprint sensor chip in his left wrist. on default, it was only wired directly to his precinct’s frequency, but he has had it jailbroken to allow connection to other frequencies, most notably to his sister’s radio link.
>> LOADING BIOGRAPHY …
tw verbal abuse, death, child abandonment and neglect
POLICE REPORT [ CASE NO. 21460930 ]
first incident: the birth of oh noeul
– [ details of event ]
on the last day of september, year 2146 at 0928 hours, lee miran gave life to a baby boy she later named oh noeul. the husband was no where to be found, claiming his inability to get out of work even for the birth of his first son. miran did not seem to mind, mumbling something about understanding and not being able to afford rent that month and desperately needing those paid hours. upon hearing this, the nurse moved swiftly to get them discharged (read: kicked out), pulling iv’s and wires out and shoving a barely bathed, still crying noeul into his mother’s arms. they were left out on the street slick with rain and grime within the following thirty minutes, the door to the underground ‘hospital’ locked behind them.
miran walked home, singing old lullabies to her son all the way there. but the lock would not turn for her key.
– [ actions taken ]
oh kyungsub, noeul’s father, got up from his desk at his precinct’s station and caved for the first time, but certainly not the last. there has always been more money in dirty bribes than in honest hours, after all. one simple write-off gathered him more than enough to slam hard cash onto their landlord’s desk in a fit of anger. later, he sold his morals for retribution too, for making sure that same underground hospital’s door was locked for good.
second incident: noise complaints lodged towards the oh family’s semi-basement home
– [ details of event ]
on the 15th day of august, year 2152 at 0314 hours, the neighbors living just feet away from the oh family called the police to complain about loud noises from the semi-basement keeping them up. this was not the first or last time they called.
oh kyungsub had just returned home, reportedly smelling like alcohol and smoke. upon arrival, he started yelling at his wife and waking up oh noeul (six years old) to do just the same. that only instigated further yelling until the argument went from being angry at noeul’s existence forcing him to go against his own morals, to blaming miran for doing nothing all day and being useless at even taking care of their child. then, it devolved to him almost threatening noeul to cry for christ’s sake, because did he have no shame for what he’s done to their family?
noeul just shook his head, silent. he had already run out of tears over this repeated event. instead, he waited for his father’s slurred words to wind down. he waited for his mother to retreat back to their room, resigned and listless like she’d always been since noeul could recently remember, leaving him to take care of the mess left behind as usual. when his father collapsed against their tattered couch and knocked a few bottles on the side table over, noeul righted his head and tossed a blanket over him, dutifully picking up the broken bottle glass soon after.
the sun rose before noeul finished and rather than going to sleep, he scoured the kitchen for something to cook for the first meal of the day.
– [ actions taken ]
there were no actions taken by the police regarding the noise complaint, because of course not. they wouldn’t betray one of their own, especially not one willing to accept even the dirtiest of bribes if it meant money to keep a roof over his head. even if he complained constantly about hating it, about feeling vile.
noeul, on the other hand, made a promise to himself to not become his dad. he went out of his way to be an upstanding citizen in a crooked city, picking trash up off the streets, giving even the smallest scraps of food he could to any of the homeless he came across, buying old school earplugs for his neighbors and telling them about some affordable hearing augmentations he researched. he bottled his anger instead of projecting it, pressure slowly building inside him, waiting to burst.
noeul grew up and cared for himself and his parents because they couldn’t do it themselves.
third incident: the birth of oh goeul
– [ details of event ]
on the 13th day of january, year 2153, lee miran gave life to a baby girl she later named oh goeul. the husband was no where to be found. miran said nothing about it this time. in fact she barely said a word. the baby was an accident, and noeul, then eight years old, was the only one to welcome her warmly. he cradled her before their mom even did and whispered promises to shield her, to care for her, promises he intended to keep (promises he wished were made to him).
because her presence meant another mouth to feed, another body to clothe. meant more money. meant more selling of oh kyungsub’s soul, if there was even anything left. and so, verbal fights continued like they always had. tension grew further, became palpable, insufferable.
on the 13th day of january, year 2158, lee miran left.
– [ actions taken ]
oh kyungsub did not notice her absence until three days later, and all he did was laugh and mutter something about it being about damn time. the yelling didn’t stop, though, chorused this time by little oh goeul’s cries. miran’s absence didn’t mean he could quit being an informant, could quit turning his cheek away from crimes. he was in too deep now, and there were still 2 extra mouths to feed. and so it continued.
nothing changed, no different course of action was taken.
noeul continued to bottle his emotions because he had no time to process them.
noeul continued to raise goeul and watch after his dad when he came home wasted in the middle of the night because someone had to.
noeul became atlas, holding the weight of his world on his twelve year old shoulders and tried so hard not to buckle under it.
fourth incident: assault with deadly weapon in a corner convenience store
– [ details of event ]
on the 13th day of january, year 2158, it rained. on the 14th day of january, year 2159, it poured. at 2309 hours in a dimly lit convenience store, officer oh kyungsub called in for backup. by the time they arrived, it was too late. they roped off the store, made a mess of its produce, burned the surveillance footage, and called it an open and shut case. robbery gone haywire, they said. wrong place, wrong time. they failed to report that the store was a front for a particularly prominent drug lord at the time that kyungsub may have wronged.
either way, the oh siblings were left completely on their own.
– [ actions taken ]
noeul didn’t grieve again. not healthily, anyway. not at first. someone had to take care of goeul, someone had to be strong for her and there was no one else now but him. their aunt moved in with them, but she might as well shouldn’t have. she was less equipped to be a parental figure than noeul was at thirteen, and could barely cover their rent.
so, noeul took to the streets. not to pick pocket or swipe snacks from the convenience stores nearby, but to look for any odd jobs people would allow a child to do. babysitting, cleaning rooms, handing out flyers, whatever was available.
(and still, it was barely enough).
fifth incident: disturbance at a vr café
– [ details of event ]
on the 20th of june, year 2162 witnesses reported a fight breaking out in the alleyway beside a bootleg vr café. at the center of the incident was oh noeul, lips cut up bloody and knuckles even more so.
but he was not a victim. in fact, he laughed when familiar police officers arrived.
the other assailant, even bloodier and swollen, claimed noeul antagonized him relentlessly as if purposefully trying to pick a fight. that it was all noeul’s fault and he was just defending himself. in the end, the officers let him go and took noeul into the precinct for the countless time in the past two years.
old pals of his father, they questioned what was going on with him. but he couldn’t tell them because he barely knew himself. he didn’t realize that the pressure he built up inside finally popped, that he finally buckled under the weight on his shoulders he’s held for years. didn’t realize he was releasing all that bided anger, all that bottled stress through his bloody fists.
so he just shrugged, silently picking at his scabs until they released him once again.
– [ actions taken ]
on that particular day, no action was taken.
but on the following one, noeul picked another argument with someone larger than him he had no business fighting with. this time, it didn’t end with a call to the police. it ended with him limping back home, coughing blood and applying pressure to an open wound on his chest.
it was two in the morning by the time he made it home and the way his heart sunk when goeul opened the door ached more than all his injuries combined. the way she helped him in, a bowl of warm water and a rag already set up at the table reminded him too much of himself at her age. only, now, he became his dad. he broke his promise.
noeul vowed that night to not do it again.
sixth incident: noeul joins the force
– [ details of incident ]
on the tenth of february in the year 2168, oh noeul officially joined the elysium police force in the same precinct as his father before him. at 21, he joined a bit later than he’d hoped on account of the officers blocking his entrance every year, though noeul was none the wiser and persevered because part-time jobs weren’t going to cut it for long.
he and goeul had moved out of the semi-basement they used to call home into a larger and marginally cleaner apartment nearby as soon as he turned 18. he had saved for that moment, wanting to provide better for goeul. but his savings depleted quickly, forcing them to move to a smaller apartment at 19, and then to a studio at 20, having to take out a loan from someone he shouldn’t have.
and so joining the force was his goal. surely, he thought, a steady career would pay more.
but being stuck with demeaning beat cop duties and receiving paychecks barely larger than his part time gigs quickly proved him wrong. whispers of bribes made it his way soon enough, and still he vowed not to take them. hard, honest work, he figured, he foolishly hoped, would rise him through the ranks, would get him that detective badge he desperately wanted. as if it was the only thing that could serve as proof he was not – and never would be again – his father.
– [ actions taken ]
noeul worked hard.
that was it, and it got him no where.
nearly three years later, he was still viewed as a rookie, still given tasks to patrol the streets and not much more. it’s always been hard to climb the ranks playing fair in this city, after all, but that didn’t make the feeling of defeat discourage him any less. but in some ways, it helped him understand his father. helped him understand why he did it. why he caved, why he drank. and on occasion, he considered it himself. just small bribes, maybe. from one-time offenders, people who truly didn’t mean to, who didn’t affect the city at large.
but he never could.
so when the opportunity came for him to go undercover and infiltrate the dealings around the afterlife and ambrosia, he took it. he saw it as a turning point, a stepping stone to get him at least one rung up the ladder.
there was one problem: goeul.
but then at seventeen, his sister insisted she’d be fine living on her own. that he shouldn’t give this opportunity up on account of her, that he’d sacrificed enough for her already. he hated that he’d be on the complete other side of the city away from her, in an area that didn’t know his name, his face – but in the end, he caved. he needed to.
now, he’s been undercover for a few months, slowly making acquaintances with people he ought to arrest. he knew to begin with it’d make him feel dirty, but he didn’t anticipate everything else. didn’t anticipate the aggressive urges he bottled back up after that shameful night in his teenage years to slowly bubble again in his blood and clench his fists. didn’t anticipate just how hard it would be to resist temptation when living right in the dirty thick of elysium.
CONQUISTA IL MONDO CON NEO ATLAS 1469, IN ARRIVO IN EDIZIONE FISICA AD APRILE 2019!
CONQUISTA IL MONDO CON NEO ATLAS 1469, IN ARRIVO IN EDIZIONE FISICA AD APRILE 2019!
NIS America è felice di annunciare che Neo ATLAS 1469 sarà disponibile per Nintendo Switch™, per la prima volta in edizione fisica, il 12 Aprile in Europa e il 19 Aprile in Oceania!
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In Neo ATLAS 1469, l’unica mappa di cui hai bisogno è quella che ti crei! Questa epica storia di…
