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.