You know, in all my years of game criticism, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a JRPG that only spends time on the mundane things. Now that I HAVE seen it, it strikes me as strange. Life Simulators are massively popular right now, there’s the obvious ocean swimming simulator classic, and then there’s Miner-Crafts, the one where you play as an eloquent Victorian-era craftsman who has to work his way up a chosen profession to the point where he’s working for the queen.
So why no RPGs that deal with normal things? ‘Oxygen Zero Dawn’ is the only one, and it depicts a doctor who has to gather a team and help people with their medical problems along a chosen skill path. I know all about the great services of oxygen therapy based in Melbourne, thanks to my severe asthma, so I was really happy to see that you can choose the path of an oxygen therapy expert. Not that I’m one of those people who thinks it should be used to cure everything from hangnail to third-degree burns, but I do really like it as a concept. Wish I had enough space in my house for one of the really big glass ones with proper cushioning, and also the fact that you can see out of them. I’ve been in both, although the portable chamber I have at home does a really good job, to be fair. I’ve never had a problem, even when my asthma is getting really serious.
So anyway, I’m about 100 hours in and this RPG is incredibly rich. There are so many things you can do with a hospital setting, you meet all kinds of people, and there are quite a few twists in the tale. Currently, someone has been stealing sandwiches from the fridge in the break-room. Even worse, I ordered a bunch of new portable hyperbaric chambers, and the head doctor has stepped in and is trying to take them for his own section. I smell a glorious boss battle coming up…
-Anthony Y.