Quantum Entanglement's Romance

When all is said and done, there’s 2 overall approaches to writing a love story.  The first is the Meant to Be angle.  This covers scenarios like love at first sight, unexpected and spontaneous attractions/hook-ups that seem more to do with checking off a box on a narrative To Do list than anything to do with the characters themselves, pre-existing romantic engagements whose validity you’re just required to accept, and destined love--love stories that fate determined would happen, or a couple falling in love because they’re reincarnations of lovers in a past life, etc.  And the second approach is the Doing the Damn Work angle, which covers love stories that are formed over time between characters who have a demonstrably solid shared dynamic, observable chemistry, and a coming together of personality and affection, all of which has been both constructed and organically grown by the creators.  This second method generally takes a good deal of effort, and some talent.

You can guess which approach most writers decide to go with.

That’s not to say that there aren’t certain benefits and laudable qualities to Meant to Be romances, mind you.  The idea of 2 people who are just right for each other, immediately, by some inscrutable will of destiny, does tap into some primal part of our emotional brain and please us to think about.  Even if real, lasting love is more often something forged through a developing, mutual process involving a truly dizzying array of factors of understanding, appreciating, assisting, attracting, working for, accepting, supporting, trusting, validating, and enjoying one another, we still seem, as an audience, to be hardwired to thrill to at least some small degree over the concept of romance being something immediate and decreed by some inexorable higher power.  And our feeling that way even makes sense!  Because no matter how you slice it, love is a thing more indefinable than otherwise, and though we may be able to recognize what kinds of people we trend toward for romance, we don’t actually get a whole lot of say in who we fall in love with.  Religion and mythology were most often born as ways for human beings to explain the phenomena of the world around them which they didn’t otherwise understand--it makes sense that we similarly cling to concepts of love at first sight and fated romance in response to an emotion which is still so much beyond our ken or control.

With that said, most of the really great love stories, the ones that last and inspire, are ones whose creators put in the time and effort to build and develop.  You can keep your Auroras and Phillips, your Snow Whites and Princes Charming; I’ll take my Beasts and Belles and my Flynns and Rapunzels, thanks.  I find the idea that some jackass prince having a single dance with some lady who runs off at midnight to be of far less romantic substance than the concept of a military captain questioning and then re-questioning his sexual orientation over the course of a few months because of that 1 weirdly effeminate recruit in his squad.*  Whether it’s showing their ability to come together as a couple to overcome all obstacles thrown at them, working through personal and emotional difficulties and becoming an inseparable part of who one another is, or just getting to know each other over time and being shown to have a vibrant, flavorful, and genuine chemistry, the couples created by the Doing the Damn Work angle will always stay in your mind more strongly than those reliant solely upon the Meant to Be approach.  It’s similar to Show, Don’t Tell--1 method of storytelling’s almost always got the upper hand on the other.

With that said, it’s a pretty awesome thing when a couple like Gabby and Marine from Quantum Entanglement comes along: a romance that works on both levels.

The love story of Gabby and Marine has all the benefits of a destined love, you see.  1 popular Meant to Be trope of romance is the idea of 2 individuals who were in love in a past life reincarnating and falling in love all over again, based strongly upon lingering feelings from their lives before, or some prior life oath, or some other such thing.  Xeno- games seem fond of this approach, for example, what with Elly and Fei in Xenogears, and what KOS-MOS and Shion were clearly meant to be in the Xenosaga trilogy.  Sailor Moon stakes something like 80% of its content on the reincarnated lovers angle with Sailor Moon and that dingus Tuxedo Mask, as another example.  Sometimes you can even get a kind of interesting take on it, like with the Kalach-Cha and Safiya in Neverwinter Nights 2’s Mask of the Betrayer expansion, or Hawkman and Hawkgirl in the recent DC Superhero Girls cartoon.  Anyway, regardless of what happened in a previous life, however, these are, in the present, 2 new people who have found themselves thrown together into love by a fated force beyond their control; it’s almost the perfect representation of the Meant to Be style of romance.

And Gabby and Marine have that!  Because, as a result of the routine memory wipes they submit to at the mandate of their clandestine super-science employer, every 6 months there’s a new Gabby and Marine, who have to start over with who they are and what their relationship is and will be.  So the fact that they keep finding themselves drawn to one another, with only the very slightest of prompting (in the form of a letter) from their previous selves, means that their romance is effectively identical to the idea of reincarnated lovers coming together again and again as a fated couple with each life they live.  And Quantum Entanglement works this angle very skillfully.  Early in the game, the instinctive draw that Marine and Gabby feel toward one another is established well through their dialogue and Marine’s monologue, as well as their actions.  Marine and Gabby both mention lingering traces of interest and compulsion toward one another, both privately and aloud, and when confronted and put on the spot by Dr. Larsen about who she truly wants to pursue a potential love with, Marine’s response can only be Gabby.  And there are also several moments that emphasize this automatic connection without words--Gabby instinctively makes her way to Marine’s room the first night after their memory wipe, without realizing what she’s doing, because it’s so ingrained in her to be there with Marine, for example, and Gabby’s retaining the muscle memory of how to perfectly make Marine’s favorite breakfast food.  There’s a ton of stuff, early into Quantum Entanglement, that takes advantage of the Meant to Be angle of these being 2 souls destined to come back to each other over and over, and it all very effectively establishes the love they’re fated for.**

I absolutely love the scene of Marine finding the letter that she left herself.  That saying Gabby’s name aloud, that testing it out as an inquiry being made of her inner heart, could provoke such an acute, unconscious pang of emotions that it would bring Marine to tears, is an amazing and poignant idea to me.

I’m convinced that if that had been the end of it, just 2 women infatuated with each other because they were Meant to Be from their previous memory incarnations, this still probably would have been a fine love story.  I mean, the story of Catherine and the Nereid in Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle was basically no more than a fated love deal, and I adored that one; it would’ve been the best romance in the game had it not been for Carmina.  So obviously Saint Bomber could have pulled off something solid with just this alone.  

But he didn’t rest on his laurels.  He Did the Damn Work, too.  Quantum Entanglement is a short RPG, only a few hours long, but its creator packed those hours full of interactions between Marine and Gabby, interactions that show us time and time again how well-suited they are for one another.  Practically every object and detail of the environment in QE can be examined for a bit of reaction text, and the majority of that involves interactions between both characters.  There’s also a lot of scripted story events and conversations between them, so even if you squander your experience with the game by rushing from 1 step in the story to the next, you’ll still see a ton of character development for them.  And it all comes together into a really compelling romance.

First of all, their casual conversation is engaging and full of the kind of easy, organic banter you see between 2 people who are on just the right set of wavelengths to be beneficially similar and different at once.  They enjoy similar approaches to humor, ethics, and values, and tend to agree more often than not--you can totally understand why they get along, when they have so much in common.  But they also are quite different people, too--plenty of Marine’s interests are ones that Gabby indulges, but doesn’t share, Gabby has a peppier (but less forgiving) personality, etc.  You can totally understand why they get along, when they’re different in ways that compliment and even complete 1 another.  When you see them interact, Marine and Gabby strike you as a realistic representation of a couple who have found their groove with each other and are exactly alike and different enough to work.  Their banter in this game shows that off, and it’s a real treat to see.

It’s also neat to see how that banter, and their general interactions, evolve.  There’s a gradual curve to the way Gabby and Marine talk to and view each other over the course of QE that goes from a trusting, but unsure stage of feeling one another’s personality out, to eventually being fully in sync, depending and finding support in each other, and being able to openly express their deep affection for 1 another.  There’s no landmarks in this progression, no single conversation you can point to in which they progress from friendship and tentative affection to love and devotion, but somehow, their dialogue going from, in the beginning, talking about possibly liking each other, to, by the end, Gabby and Marine each being comfortable in openly stating her love for her partner and that statement being a reinforcement of feelings that are already known and understood, feels like it’s taken such a natural progression that you’ve barely noticed it happening.  I would give a lot for more RPG writers to be able to create so organic and smooth a progression of affections in their romances as Saint Bomber can; even Final Fantasy 9’s Dagger and Zidane, which are an excellent example of this kind of natural progression, needed more visible goalposts as they went about their romance.

I really like how well Marine and Gabby support each other, too.  Each woman is very encouraging to the other, and does whatever she can to help her partner stay safe, keep going, and maintain her spirits, whether that be through encouraging words or protective actions.  But what really takes it a step forward and impresses upon me just how strong their feelings are is how much work each woman puts into keeping ahold of herself for the other’s sake.  As I mentioned in my previous rant about Quantum Entanglement, the constant quips and wisecracks that Marine and Gabby engage in with their banter are in many ways genuine, but at the same time, are also a coping mechanism that they use to keep themselves able to keep moving forward and not succumb to their terror and despair at the situation they find themselves in and the terrible things they keep witnessing.  Beyond just overtly encouraging one another, Gabby and Marine also do their best to support each other by staying strong for the other.  What I really like about that is that this act for the sake of her partner also winds up being to her own benefit, too, as each woman might not have otherwise been able to find enough of a well of strength to carry on if it were only for her own sake.  I think that’s a really touching and romantic thing--showing that love is the sort of thing that buoys and empowers you even as it compels you to do all you can to support the person you care about.

There’s time and care put into showing us reasons for Gabby and Marine to love each other, too.  From what I’ve spoken of so far, you can obviously infer that they appreciate one another’s sense of humor, they get along well, and they each give their everything to support each other.  They go out of their way to better the life of one another, like Gabby having become great at making Marine’s favorite breakfast, and Marine frequently stepping forward to be Gabby’s protector, physically and emotionally.***  They’re clearly physically attracted to each other--a fact which each of them manages to convey without being creepy or otherwise unhealthy about it, yes JRPGs it actually is possible to do that--and each has moments in which they so greatly impress the other in some way that you can practically feel the other’s heart flutter and hear her intake of breath.  Everything just lines up for a genuine, natural story of an enduring and passionate love between these 2 people.  You’ve got the grandiose acts and events that satisfactorily bring your average RPG characters together in romance, and maybe more importantly, you’ve got the little gestures and connections that keep a couple happy and interested with one another in the long term, once the ardor of the game’s action and questing wears off.

I’d lastly like to point out that beyond just the fact that this is a well-written, sincere love story in its own right, it is, in addition, a good example of a romance in the narrative sense, too, for the fact that the romance does not get in the way of the story and characters.  See, there’s this thing that happens a lot where a love story in a game, or really any medium of expression, can collide with other narrative elements, rather than coalesce with them.  It may feel like it’s tacked on just for the sake of being there (Agnes and Tiz in Bravely Default 1 and Second), or the characters’ actions and personalities when in love are departed enough from what we saw before that they now seem out of character (Dart in Legend of Dragoon), or the romance begins taking focus away from the main story (Final Fantasy 8).  Or sometimes all 3 of those problems occur simultaneously (Priere and Croix in La Pucelle Tactics).  Not so with Quantum Entanglement--the romance was clearly an important and valued part of the narrative as a whole, it fits perfectly into the main story without taking any attention away from it, and in no way do Marine and Gabby’s feelings for each other lessen, change, or obfuscate their personalities.  Saint Bomber clearly valued the characters he had created, who they were as people in their own right, and wanted to create a romance between them, for their sake, not just forcibly build one around them, if that makes any sense.

And yes, I know that, on this point, I’m essentially praising the game for accomplishing something that should really just be basic, common sense in telling a story...but, as I’ve said, RPGs are just generally not great at romances.  Having the basic competence to write your love story into the game in a way that doesn’t somehow damage the other elements is surprisingly uncommon in this genre.

Anyway, I think I’ve said enough on this matter.  The point is, Quantum Entanglement has got a great romance, and I think it’s worth saying so, and why.  This is a love story that retains all the benefits of a destined love, yet also puts in the work of creating a realistic couple by showing their chemistry, giving them a lot of time and material to interact with and bond over, and displaying their causes for loving one another and their excellent capacity for supporting each other.  This is a wholesome, engaging love story, and this genre needs a lot more romances like it.















* “Somehow I’ll make a man out of you” indeed, amirite?


** Also, something that’s really cool?  The very title of this game can be seen as a reference to Gabby and Marine’s connection.  While Quantum Entanglement is obviously a reference to some of the scientific theories of many worlds and the multiverse and so on, which has surface relevance to the game’s events, it could also describe Gabby and Marine themselves, a statement that they are so intrinsically meant for each other that they are impossible to perceive as separate entities, like quantumly entangled particles.  Also, when broken down, you can see it as saying that their being together (their entanglement) is an immutable fact across all possible realities (the application of quantum theories regarding multiple universes).  I have no idea whether this is in any way intentional and there is every possibility that I just don’t understand higher sciences well enough to grasp what these terms actually mean...but I’m a goddamn romantic so these are the interpretations I’m sticking to.


*** Whether or not it’s strictly necessary.  Gabby...let’s just say she can generally take care of herself.

General RPG Creator Kemco's New Game+ Skip Seen Dialogue Feature

Kemco has the right idea about something.

Now, I know what you’re feeling.  You’re confused, scared, and angry.  You feel lost.  Your steadfast rock in this world has shifted, and now nothing seems certain.  Kemco did something right!?  The safe, secure consistency and comfort of 2021 has been lost to you.

Well, I’m with you, but there’s no denying it: those 2 brain cells banging together over at Kemco’s offices for the past 15 years have managed, much like a million monkeys laboring tirelessly away at their typewriters, to code something halfway decent.  And much like Dragon Quest’s Heal All feature, it wouldn’t be fair of me to constantly shit on these games without recognizing what (extremely few) virtues they possess, too.

So, there’s a thing that Kemco games have a tendency to do.  To keep you engaged past the end of the game, a Kemco RPG will frequently have a New Game+ feature, which adds a little to the game’s content.  Basically, while most of the plot is the same the second time around, there will also be a bunch of extra lines of dialogue, or inner monologue, or even new little side-scenes added to the story’s course, which will reveal extra tidbits of lore and/or characterization.  In theory, this is a pretty cool idea, and in the case of most of the RPGs that utilize this or a similar feature, it’s a great bonus and tends to allow for a creative new way to more deeply immerse the audience.

In this particular case, of course, it’s not quite as welcome, because the last thing you want out of a Kemco game is more Kemco game.

What IS unambiguously great, however, is how Kemco handles the text of a New Game+.  There is, you see, quite frequently an option to fast-forward any dialogue and narration that you’ve seen during the first run through the game--but any new text, that you’ll only see on this New Game+ playthrough, is NOT skipped through, stopping the fast-forward the moment it appears.  Sometimes, there is also or instead a feature to skip entire scenes, but once again, it won’t skip the parts you haven’t seen before.

Being able to skip text isn’t a new thing for RPGs, mind you.  A few RPGs allow for fast-forward functions to some degree or another after completing the game (such as Chrono Cross’s Time Shifter), and you can generally just scroll through text without reading it pretty quickly in most games by rapidly tapping the Action/Confirm/Whatever button.

But in those cases, you’re accountable for whatever text you’re rushing through; if you miss something that you wanted to see just because you were hurrying through the stuff that didn’t matter to you, that’s on you.  And this can limit how useful these features are.  The game I recently played, for example, Quantum Entanglement, has a button for skipping through dialogue, and it’s very handy in general for the many times you’ll examine something a second time but only trigger the same dialogue as before...but it’s not as helpful as it could be, in the New Game+.  Quantum Entanglement is a game that has new content unlocked to view on a second playthrough, but the text-skipping button doesn’t distinguish between that and any other text, so it’s not as handy as it could be.  Because to miss even a single line of QE’s excellent, witty, engrossing writing would be madness.

That’s why Kemco’s take on this feature is so great: you’re not in danger of missing out.  You can hit the fast-forward button to your heart’s content during the dialogue you’ve seen before, or the skip button for scenes you’re familiar with--it’s a Kemco game, you don’t need a refresher, it’s not like it’s so complex that the basic gist of your memory isn’t gonna more than adequately cover all the story’s bases--and when the new stuff that you’re presumably playing specifically with the intent of seeing pops up, everything stops, and you can view it fully.

Kemco didn’t invent this idea, of course.  It’s a common feature of Visual Novels (and a godsend for them, at that; I don’t know if they’d even really exist as a genre without it).  But credit where it’s due: inventor or not, Kemco seems to be the only developer that makes consistent use of this selective skipping feature when putting out an RPG whose content expands on successive playthroughs.

And I’m not sure why that is.  I mean, I guess I can understand why a tiny indie developer would neglect to include this feature in their creation, since I would guess a feature like this involves a formidable chunk of time and coding to make possible, so Quantum Entanglement gets a pass.  But even if my suspicions are true, and Kemco does in fact recoup its entire development cost for 1 of its RPGs by the fourth copy it sells, I can’t imagine they’re rolling in money and resources.  So if Kemco can manage to make this concept work, you’d think other, more substantial developers would get on board with it.

But they generally don’t, and that’s a shame.  The function of being able to skip seen text, but stop at any new content, is a great convenience to have in any game which reveals new depths in subsequent playthroughs, and it seems that only Kemco consistently recognizes this fact and strives to include such a feature in their works.  I don’t entirely like doing so, but credit where it’s due: Kemco’s ahead of the game on this one.

Quantum Entanglement

So!  Quick question: who here would like to play an RPG with a really touching, engaging love story?  What about a clever, quirky comedy?  How would a tense, dark bit of survival and psychological horror do you?  Who among you could do with a thoughtful, creative story with a deceptively deep well of lore and detail?

If you raised your hand for any 1 of these, you might want to check Quantum Entanglement out.  If you raised your hands for any 2 of these, you definitely want to check Quantum Entanglement out.  And if you raised your hands for 3 or more of these, then what the hell are you, that’s too many hands for a single person, stay away from me you freak.

Quantum Entanglement is the second RPG created by a certain Mr. Saint Bomber, the same talented individual who, 10 years ago, created Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle.  You may recall that I was, though with hesitation, a big fan of EoWC, back in the day.  In fact, I didn’t really give it enough credit back then, even in that largely positive review/recommendation.  I was caught up, for a while, with coming to terms with the idea that something could be pornographic, and unapologetically so, without losing any of its worth as a great work of expression and storytelling art.  I find, when I re-read my rant on EoWC, that I’m annoyed with myself for making such a big deal out of that; it’s a mindset that I now regard as juvenile and unexamined.  But then, it was the eye-opening experience of Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle that most greatly propelled my perspective forward on this point, to begin with, and that rant was a part of my growing process as an audience, so I can’t regard it with too much embarrassment.

But I’m past that point now, so I can say, wholeheartedly, with no reluctance, that Saint Bomber is no 1-hit wonder, and Quantum Entanglement is a great RPG that you really should check out.

First of all, it’s a solid story as a whole.  Quantum Entanglement follows a janitor and a secretary who work for a shadowy secret science facility, and must rely on their wits and resourcefulness to find a way to escape it when a terrible catastrophe strikes.  On its surface, it’s a decent, engaging tale of 2 people falling in love as they try to survive a dangerous situation and cope with the terrible things they witness, and Saint Bomber does a hell of a job in the direction of it.  It’s no simple task to effectively create tension, at times outright fear, within the confines of RPG Maker, but damn if he doesn’t manage it with effortless grace.  You’re rarely at ease in Quantum Entanglement, once it gets properly started, always wary of what dangers Marine’s going to face with each door she opens.  The uncertainty and despair that Marine and Gabby grapple with in their dialogue, combined with the dim settings, an effective soundtrack, the lack of knowledge about what caused the disaster they contend with, and an effective smattering of moments of real danger and horror at their discoveries all keep you on your toes as well as any more visually impressive survival horror I’ve seen can.*

QE is also 1 of those great ventures like Undertale, where there’s a lot of stuff going on below the surface that you can discover and piece together, but is, at the same time, simple and straightforward as a whole.  It’s the kind of plot you can appreciate just on its surface level, a story that’s good just for the sake of being a story, but has so much of interest put into its construction that pursuing a full understanding of it becomes a rewarding challenge.  Don’t get me wrong, a masterpiece like Revolutionary Girl Utena, something that really only comes into its own as a story when you’ve seen it a couple times to get a proper handle on what the hell it’s doing, is an amazing and enriching thing to experience...but there’s a lot to be said for a product whose many depths of meaning and detail don’t have to be fully plumbed for any part of it to function adequately as a story.  You can engage with QE on as deep a level as you want to.  You can be satisfied with it as a basic tale of love and survival.  You can also start really chewing on its secrets and what it’s saying about human nature, our connections to each other, our existence as a self, and the concept of an all-encompassing frame of one’s self within which all our possible selves may be constrained, if that’s the level you want to engage it on.  Quantum Entanglement is good at each tier which it seeks to engage you.

Myself, I couldn’t help taking notes as I played through it a second time.  Haven’t felt the desire to do that since Nier: Automata!  I always love it when I find a game that entrances me enough to want that badly to understand its every nuance, and has the depths that make such an understanding a fun challenge to achieve.

In addition to being a good story as a whole, the flavor of Quantum Entanglement is terrific, probably its second best quality.  To put it simply, it’s just a hell of a lot of fun.  It’s packed from front to back with a plethora of diverting, witty humor, and quirky personality.  From Marine’s instinctive passion for trash bins, to spectacularly punny word play, to clever references and banter, to science humor,** Quantum Entanglement is a game that quickly and continually endears itself to you, and keeps you chuckling all through its course.  It’s got a similar kind of humor to West of Loathing and Kingdom of Loathing, I’d say, if perhaps not quite as purely hilarious--but as comedy content goes, there’s sure as hell no shame in placing second to Asymmetric Productions.

I also like the fact that the comical content of Quantum Entanglement actually serves a demonstrable purpose, has an in-game reason for occurring.  First, from a storytelling perspective, the frequent humor is beneficial for its ability to temper the darker content of the game, creating a contrast against the harsher and even disturbing parts of QE that makes it easier for a player to keep going.  I’ve mentioned this before, but a strong element of comedy in a work can have an amazingly positive effect on keeping an audience grounded and invested, and enhance the power of the parts of the work that are meant to be taken seriously.  RPGs like Undertale and Okage: Shadow King have made great use of this technique, and Quantum Entanglement joins their midst.

Second, and even more interesting, the jokes that Gabby and especially Marine are making throughout the game’s course are a realistic reaction for them, and a strong humanizing element for their characters.  By their own admission, Gabby and Marine’s levity, though often organic, is frequently an intentional, even forced matter, because wisecracks are 1 of the only ways they can cope with what’s happened, what they’re witnessing, and the sheer terror of their circumstance.  Although there’s more to each than first meets the eye, Marine and Gabby are ultimately just the lowest-rung staff, untrained and unequipped for the disaster in which they are trapped, and clinging desperately to quips, puns, and banter as a way to keep their minds from succumbing to trauma is highly relatable, and a great way to provide an in-universe reason for a constant comical tone to the game.***  It also is a really touching point of characterizing how much they care about each other, because a lot of their keeping this comical tone to their explorations isn’t just about helping each woman deal with this situation for her own sake--it’s also about staying strong for her companion.

And that brings us to Quantum Entanglement’s best quality: its romance.  Gabby and Marine, solid characters in their own right, form a poignant, wonderful, and extremely well-crafted love story that is absolutely going to be taking a spot on my Greatest RPG Romances list when I do my year-end list updates for 2021.  Because above anything else, I feel, Quantum Entanglement is a story of love, and damn is it a touching and beautiful one.  And I plan to get into that in some detail...but in another rant, because I feel like examining why Gabby x Marine works so damn well on so many levels is really worth its own rant.  Until then, you’ll just have to take my word for it: if you’re as starved for high-quality romances in RPGs as I am, you really want to check Quantum Entanglement out.  It’s just...really lovely for how genuine it is.

Oh, also, not that this should necessarily be a selling point to a game because it’s certainly possible for something to not be worth your time even if you don’t have to pay for it, but: Quantum Entanglement is free.  Like Grimm’s Hollow, you can pay for it if you like (and if you do play and enjoy it, that’s something you should consider!), but you can also just have it for free, too.  Following up on my recommendation today isn’t gonna cost you a cent that you don’t explicitly, voluntarily choose to part with.

There are, of course, a couple aspects of the game that I should mention ahead of time--not flaws, mind you, but characteristics that may or may not be to any given person’s taste.  First of all, there’s no battles in this RPG--beyond the gameplay element of exploration, it’s pure story.  Which suits my tastes perfectly, as you know, but some people, for reasons unfathomable to myself, are really into RPGs’ signature reliance on a gameplay dynamic that simulates the act of using a Table of Contents, which the genre has the audacity to call a battle system.  It’s not a great surprise when you know Saint Bomber made QE, given that Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle had, I think, a grand total of 4 battles in its entire course, but still, if you’ve denied yourself a decent game like Beautiful Desolation and a wonderful game like Rakuen because they’re RPGs without fighting, then Quantum Entanglement will be joining your Missed Out On It list.  Secondly, it’s an RPG Maker game, which seems to be a deal-breaker to some folks.  Real shame, that; I get that a ton of RPG Maker creations are amateur works that don’t have a lot going for them, but games like Quantum Entanglement really do prove the sustained viability of it as a developer’s tool.

And lastly, yeah, there’s sex in Quantum Entanglement.  Well, there can be, at least.  Like Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle, the option is given to the player at the game’s beginning to turn off the sexual content, so this shouldn’t be a problem, or anything.  Interestingly, though, unlike EoWC, the erotic content of this title feels like a function of the game’s story, rather than its founding element.  As Saint Bomber himself once told me, EoWC was a case of setting out to make a sexy game with heart, and winding up making a heartful game with sex.  This time, though, the latter is his intended goal, and he stays the course--the sex in Quantum Entanglement is present pretty much only within the the bounds of its being a natural part of love and romance, and love and romance is what QE’s all about.  I dunno if that makes Quantum Entanglement a more ‘respectable’ work or not, but it is less gratuitous, for whatever that may or may not be worth.

At any rate, though, those qualities are about all I would warn any potential player of about this game, and it’s hardly a warning to begin with.  If you want a solid, emotionally affecting and gratifying experience which will keep you consistently entertained from start to finish, Quantum Entanglement is a long, long way away from your worst option, that’s for sure.  I heartily recommend it!















* I’d like to say, also, that I appreciate the level head Saint Bomber has for gore and other, visceral horror material.  While he doesn’t shy away from it (to the extent that RPG Maker allows, at least), Saint Bomber approaches shocking imagery with the confident restraint of a creator who knows that it’s not the gore, but all the factors surrounding it, that make for a truly unnerving experience for an audience.  He’s not here to shock, he’s here to tell a story that is often shocking.  It’s an important distinction when it comes to effective and dignified approaches to creating engagement and tension in an audience.


** Which admittedly doesn’t do much for me, but I assume it’s amusing for those with a little less pathetic a dearth of basic scientific knowledge than mine?


*** Also, something really cool about this realization is that it also gives me a sudden glimmer of new insight into Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle.  In seeing Marine and Gabby knowingly use humor as a coping mechanism for the traumatic events they’re currently undergoing, I find myself wondering if perhaps the same is true of Duchess Catherine?  While her own trauma is in the past, rather than during the events of EoWC,**** it could very well be that the clever, lighthearted comedy of Embric of Wulfhammer’s castle--or at least, Catherine’s contributions to it--is a perspective that she adopted as a coping mechanism for what Greyghast did to her.  That sort of thing happens in real life (such as with the story behind Tina Fey’s scar), and Marine and Gabby’s stated use of jokes to this effect shows it’s something Saint Bomber has an awareness and interest in.  So, just 1 more reason I like Quantum Entanglement, as it’s deepened my understanding of a personal favorite game just that little bit more.


**** ...Sort of.