Backstage Pass
Nov. 12th, 2018 06:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrBackstage Pass is an enjoyable dating/life sim about a makeup artist, Sian, in her first year of college. You have to balance school, work, and socialising and there's romantic paths as well as the option to focus more on friendship or her career.
I spent quite a while staring at it going "yes, it looks fun, but is it $30USD worth of fun?". The answer for me was yes but YMMV! So here's a more detailed review for anyone who wants one.
So! It's a well made game, with nice art, good writing, good voice acting, and great characters. About the only thing I entirely disliked was the music, which was painfully generic. Also the stat raising gets repetitive and can be annoyingly fiddly, after my first playthrough I used a walkthrough for everything and still had trouble sometimes.
This is set in the same world as Re:Alistair, and was made by the same people, but it stands alone, and the re:Alistair shout-outs are pretty subtle.
The main gameplay is the typical stats raising thing where you choose Sian's actions for each day (Sleep, study, work, etc) and this affects her stats (fatigue, intelligence etc) You also get to choose who she hangs out with and what she says to them. These all affect how people feel about her and whether she passes various checks that change how scenes play out and what path and ending she gets.
There's four primary love interests, all men with conventional romances as well as the option to be friends. There's three secondary love interests, who have slightly less fleshed out paths that can only be played one way: a woman with a romance, a man with an asexual queer-platonic-y romance, and an implicitly gay man you can only be friends with. There's what looks like a hidden romance in the settings but afaict that's just the extra scene you get with a complete set of endings.
There's also the option to have no romance and focus on Sian's career. I did this my first time through by accident, and even though I failed to get any of the specific Good Career endings I still had a fun time and felt like she had an enjoyable arc. I haven't gotten around to watching the Good Career Endings yet.
All the paths are enjoyable, and it's a lot less heteronormative than most m/f romance games. There are a lot of scenes of Sian making her male love interests pretty :D One of the primary love interests is bi and it's not treated as a big deal.
It's not what I'd call a queer game though. Asides from all the queer relationships being explicitly secondary, no-one ever states their sexuality outright or talks about it unless required by the plot eg the female love interest says she's "only interested in girls" but never uses the word "lesbian". Someone could play the whole gay friendship path and not realise he's queer at all, since the only way you know asides from subtle implication is that he mentions having dated a guy on another path. And while nothing offended me per se it all just felt slightly off.
Mental illness is also handled a bit vaguely: the protagonist very clearly has social anxiety, and it's handled in a realistic and sympathetic way, but it's never named. Another minor character has serious mental health issues and it's handled sympathetically but she's a bit othered.
The creators of the game are Asian American women, and the protagonist and two of the love interests are Asian American (including one who is a mixture of Japanese and native Hawaiian, the only indigenous love interest I can remember having seen in any dating sim) The game doesn't make a huge deal about it, but their ethnicity is unambiguous and shows up in small ways here and there.
Something this has in common with Re:Alistair is that it has affection for all the characters, even the antagonistic ones, and generally believes all people basically mean well even if they have flaws and end up hurting each other. This is mostly great, but there's a repeated theme in these games where someone is bitter about their parents being cold or otherwise hurtful, and their pain is acknowledged but the protagonist is all "I'm sure your parents love you, they're your parents! They screwed up, but maybe if you talk to them you can work things out!" And this always turns out to be true. I'd prefer some acknowledgement that some people are better off just walking away from their parents, or at least leaving it to their parents to fix things, even if neither actually happens in the game.
Where the game shines is the characters. While many fit into Romance Tropes they feel like fully rounded people who happen to be tropey rather than tropes with a person skin draped over the top like most dating sim love interests. The plots, dialogue, and romances don't shine quite as hard but aren't bad.
I was also impressed by the surprisingly grounded portrayal of the entertainment industry under the fluffy rom-com gloss. The producer of the game worked on the English dub of Dragon Ball Z and that seems to be where she met most of the voice actors. There's a note saying many of the events in the game are based on real life experiences and I can believe it. I haven't worked in the entertainment industry myself but it all rang very true from what I've seen of creative jobs.
I was too lazy to do the friendship versions of any of the main dudes, but I watched them on youtube and they were cute, with more emphasis on the creative partnership than the romance versions.
Characters with paths:
Sian: the 18 year old protagonist. She is kind, friendly and sensible but can be a bit of a workaholic and has social anxiety. Despite being a typical otome heroine in many ways she felt real to me in a way most don't. Her name is pronounced like "Sean" which was VERY SURREAL but I got used to it.
Adam: An 18 year old up and coming pop singer who is Sian's childhood best friend. People mistake them for siblings a lot and they have that sort of comfortable, not especially sexual dynamic even in the romance. He can be a bit immature and irresponsible but is also the only LI to really try to get Sian to be less of a workaholic (even if he's a little needy about it) Anyway, this was cute enough.
Benito: a 15 year old street magician. Instead of the usual Cute Younger Guy type he's just a guy who happens to be younger, believably his age but relating to Sian as a peer. He's so brilliant and self confident it feels like the age gap helps stop him from inadvertently steamrolling her, eg he still stumbles a little when being charming (which is charming in it's own way). The voice actor is non binary and Benito pinged that way to me a bit as well. I liked this path a lot!
John: a 35 year old actor Sean works with. Charmingly English in a grumpy sort of way. I was put off by the age gap but so is he at first, and their dynamic reminds me of relationships I've seen female friends into that sort of thing enjoy with older guys in real life. He respects her as a person and colleague, and while they both obviously get a kick out of playing Sexy Older Guy and Innocent Ingenue he's careful to make sure she's always comfortable. I still found him a bit....older guy, but I'm not into them, so. Like one of the re:Alistair LIs he keeps using the word 'milady' and it bugged me every time. LET THE WORD GO, AYU SAKATA. I overall quite liked the romance, but the friendship route was less satisfying.
Matthew: A beautiful sad shy 18 year old model who has been kept in a gilded cage his whole life. This played out exactly like I expected it to and I loved it.
Lloyd: Sian's (implicitly gay) 35 year old boss. A lot of fun, and his path was a really nice creative partnership and platonic friendship.
Nicole: a 17 year old model who tries to cover her insecurities and sadness with a Fun Girl persona. I think I would probably would have enjoyed the romance more if she didn't share so many superficial similarities with an ex-friend who was a BURNING DUMPSTER FIRE, but sadly my brain kept going "DON'T TRUST HER RUN AWAY". I still mostly liked it.
Alvin: Sian's 19 nerdy year old maths tutor, with an asexual and ambiguously aromantic relationship path. This was pretty cute, sadly the writer doesn't seem to have as much experience with maths tutoring as the entertainment industry, so those parts felt a bit generic, but it's not like there's many better maths tutoring focussed romances out there. He's endearingly awkward and fannishly nerdy about Sian's job, and a contrast to all the performer love interests.
Rachel and Celina: Great female characters who are NOT ROMANCE-ABLE BECAUSE THE UNIVERSE HATES ME. You see a little more of them if you don't do the other paths.
Omake: A cute extra little story you get if you finish all the endings (which I totally did not, hooray for Youtube)
I spent quite a while staring at it going "yes, it looks fun, but is it $30USD worth of fun?". The answer for me was yes but YMMV! So here's a more detailed review for anyone who wants one.
So! It's a well made game, with nice art, good writing, good voice acting, and great characters. About the only thing I entirely disliked was the music, which was painfully generic. Also the stat raising gets repetitive and can be annoyingly fiddly, after my first playthrough I used a walkthrough for everything and still had trouble sometimes.
This is set in the same world as Re:Alistair, and was made by the same people, but it stands alone, and the re:Alistair shout-outs are pretty subtle.
The main gameplay is the typical stats raising thing where you choose Sian's actions for each day (Sleep, study, work, etc) and this affects her stats (fatigue, intelligence etc) You also get to choose who she hangs out with and what she says to them. These all affect how people feel about her and whether she passes various checks that change how scenes play out and what path and ending she gets.
There's four primary love interests, all men with conventional romances as well as the option to be friends. There's three secondary love interests, who have slightly less fleshed out paths that can only be played one way: a woman with a romance, a man with an asexual queer-platonic-y romance, and an implicitly gay man you can only be friends with. There's what looks like a hidden romance in the settings but afaict that's just the extra scene you get with a complete set of endings.
There's also the option to have no romance and focus on Sian's career. I did this my first time through by accident, and even though I failed to get any of the specific Good Career endings I still had a fun time and felt like she had an enjoyable arc. I haven't gotten around to watching the Good Career Endings yet.
All the paths are enjoyable, and it's a lot less heteronormative than most m/f romance games. There are a lot of scenes of Sian making her male love interests pretty :D One of the primary love interests is bi and it's not treated as a big deal.
It's not what I'd call a queer game though. Asides from all the queer relationships being explicitly secondary, no-one ever states their sexuality outright or talks about it unless required by the plot eg the female love interest says she's "only interested in girls" but never uses the word "lesbian". Someone could play the whole gay friendship path and not realise he's queer at all, since the only way you know asides from subtle implication is that he mentions having dated a guy on another path. And while nothing offended me per se it all just felt slightly off.
Mental illness is also handled a bit vaguely: the protagonist very clearly has social anxiety, and it's handled in a realistic and sympathetic way, but it's never named. Another minor character has serious mental health issues and it's handled sympathetically but she's a bit othered.
The creators of the game are Asian American women, and the protagonist and two of the love interests are Asian American (including one who is a mixture of Japanese and native Hawaiian, the only indigenous love interest I can remember having seen in any dating sim) The game doesn't make a huge deal about it, but their ethnicity is unambiguous and shows up in small ways here and there.
Something this has in common with Re:Alistair is that it has affection for all the characters, even the antagonistic ones, and generally believes all people basically mean well even if they have flaws and end up hurting each other. This is mostly great, but there's a repeated theme in these games where someone is bitter about their parents being cold or otherwise hurtful, and their pain is acknowledged but the protagonist is all "I'm sure your parents love you, they're your parents! They screwed up, but maybe if you talk to them you can work things out!" And this always turns out to be true. I'd prefer some acknowledgement that some people are better off just walking away from their parents, or at least leaving it to their parents to fix things, even if neither actually happens in the game.
Where the game shines is the characters. While many fit into Romance Tropes they feel like fully rounded people who happen to be tropey rather than tropes with a person skin draped over the top like most dating sim love interests. The plots, dialogue, and romances don't shine quite as hard but aren't bad.
I was also impressed by the surprisingly grounded portrayal of the entertainment industry under the fluffy rom-com gloss. The producer of the game worked on the English dub of Dragon Ball Z and that seems to be where she met most of the voice actors. There's a note saying many of the events in the game are based on real life experiences and I can believe it. I haven't worked in the entertainment industry myself but it all rang very true from what I've seen of creative jobs.
I was too lazy to do the friendship versions of any of the main dudes, but I watched them on youtube and they were cute, with more emphasis on the creative partnership than the romance versions.
Characters with paths:
Sian: the 18 year old protagonist. She is kind, friendly and sensible but can be a bit of a workaholic and has social anxiety. Despite being a typical otome heroine in many ways she felt real to me in a way most don't. Her name is pronounced like "Sean" which was VERY SURREAL but I got used to it.
Adam: An 18 year old up and coming pop singer who is Sian's childhood best friend. People mistake them for siblings a lot and they have that sort of comfortable, not especially sexual dynamic even in the romance. He can be a bit immature and irresponsible but is also the only LI to really try to get Sian to be less of a workaholic (even if he's a little needy about it) Anyway, this was cute enough.
Benito: a 15 year old street magician. Instead of the usual Cute Younger Guy type he's just a guy who happens to be younger, believably his age but relating to Sian as a peer. He's so brilliant and self confident it feels like the age gap helps stop him from inadvertently steamrolling her, eg he still stumbles a little when being charming (which is charming in it's own way). The voice actor is non binary and Benito pinged that way to me a bit as well. I liked this path a lot!
John: a 35 year old actor Sean works with. Charmingly English in a grumpy sort of way. I was put off by the age gap but so is he at first, and their dynamic reminds me of relationships I've seen female friends into that sort of thing enjoy with older guys in real life. He respects her as a person and colleague, and while they both obviously get a kick out of playing Sexy Older Guy and Innocent Ingenue he's careful to make sure she's always comfortable. I still found him a bit....older guy, but I'm not into them, so. Like one of the re:Alistair LIs he keeps using the word 'milady' and it bugged me every time. LET THE WORD GO, AYU SAKATA. I overall quite liked the romance, but the friendship route was less satisfying.
Matthew: A beautiful sad shy 18 year old model who has been kept in a gilded cage his whole life. This played out exactly like I expected it to and I loved it.
Lloyd: Sian's (implicitly gay) 35 year old boss. A lot of fun, and his path was a really nice creative partnership and platonic friendship.
Nicole: a 17 year old model who tries to cover her insecurities and sadness with a Fun Girl persona. I think I would probably would have enjoyed the romance more if she didn't share so many superficial similarities with an ex-friend who was a BURNING DUMPSTER FIRE, but sadly my brain kept going "DON'T TRUST HER RUN AWAY". I still mostly liked it.
Alvin: Sian's 19 nerdy year old maths tutor, with an asexual and ambiguously aromantic relationship path. This was pretty cute, sadly the writer doesn't seem to have as much experience with maths tutoring as the entertainment industry, so those parts felt a bit generic, but it's not like there's many better maths tutoring focussed romances out there. He's endearingly awkward and fannishly nerdy about Sian's job, and a contrast to all the performer love interests.
Rachel and Celina: Great female characters who are NOT ROMANCE-ABLE BECAUSE THE UNIVERSE HATES ME. You see a little more of them if you don't do the other paths.
Omake: A cute extra little story you get if you finish all the endings (which I totally did not, hooray for Youtube)
