Concluse 2

1 July 2024

This review has also been posted on Steam and Backloggd.

Concluse 2 is what happens when you have so much intense creative energy to put into a project that you just keep pushing on it instead of stopping. It is a game that pauses only briefly to say "can we do this better?" but never stops long enough to worry about its jank. It is confident in what it is delivering upon in a way that can only be induced by lightning, divine inspiration, and the sort of cockiness that more creatives should possess.

The best summary I can give of Concluse 2, as I have given again and again to my friends, is "what if a guy made a Homestuck out of Silent Hill 2." What if the mind-twisting feeling of watching 360p videos of a 19 year old play through Silent Hill on their PSone via YouTube was piped directly into the cosmic planar Original Charactersphere of Homestuck-likes.

Was it Silent Hill 2? Or 3? Or 4? Or the first? Though the planting of Michael's missing wife is the most evocative of 2, the character development plays more straightforwardly ala 3, while maintaining many of the vibes of the first, and some of the surrealist monster designs of 4, and i could name a dozen other media properties off the back of my hand that i'm 95% were direct inspiration. I wish I had this clarity of vision, for I too wish that every time I saw a cool piece on inspiration I immediately knew how to expand my magnum opus.

Like an evolving conclusion, the inspirations coalesce into a multi-armed narrative that touches not only parallel, distant worlds; but parallel, alternate paths. Realities played elsewhere, in other times. Should you play Concluse? Should you watch the YouTube series all this is based on? Should you jump directly into Concluse 2? Okay you should definitely jump directly into Concluse 2, and if Chapter 2 title drop of The Drifting Prefecture and the unlocks of the secret mirror universe idol band music videos make your head roll 190° in enthralled confusion then proceed to immerse yourself in the rest of the sprawling heap.

I think the thing that surprised me the most about Concluse 2 was two elements: First, the sincerely wonderful scenery design, especially in the titular Drifting Prefecture. The tight city scenery is so deeply evocative, feeling truly like an infested delapitated place, and even on the easiest difficulty settings gave a haunting feeling that I reveled in. Second, the strict adherance to constantly being the coolest fucking game I've ever played.

This game has such a small team working on it and it's 30 hours long. Do you know how much of it is cutscenes? I cannot even begin to describe how many cool things are in this game. So here's a list of some of them:

You might at this point say "what are you talking about?" and I would tell you that it's a fair point for you to ask me that. Look. I can't say you'll necessarily enjoy this game. You may not even find it particularly playable. There's a lot of jank in here. But there's also a LOT of incredible storytelling that is delivered with such earnest panache that I thoroughly loved every second of it. Do you know when the last time I was hooting and hollering at a video game before this was? I don't remember either, honestly. My brain was basically entirely consumed by Concluse 2 from December 2023 to April 2024. I could not stop talking about it. I will not stop talking about it. I NEED Concluse 3 to be real one day, or I might sincerely evaporate from anticipation.

One final note for my fellow queers: T4T Michael / Caroline is my headcanon. Look how clocky she is in Chapter 3. I know that's the PSX graphics, but I can believe.