Oookuki (2008)

Developer: Global A Entertainment, GAE
Platforms: PlayStation 2
Genres: Adventure

The 3D catalog: game boxes on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalog in 3D

The same catalog has a room you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real games from it when you tell them what you feel like playing. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this game is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A clunky, mistake-riddled trudge through empty rooms and long load times that feels more like a chore than a mystery to solve.

jankytediousclunkyfrustratinglow-budgetslow-pacedunpolishedobscure

About

The chronicles of the Oooku, the women's quarters of Edo Castle, is remembered infamously in Japan as a classic kusoge, slang for a very bad video game. The story revolves around discourse between some of the women in the Oooku over the current shogun, which eventually leads to the player needing to endlessly search around a huge amount of empty rooms and withstand annoying load times as you interview people for their testimonies. There's spelling errors throughout the entire game, as well as typographical errors that have the Edo era characters speaking very modern at unexpected times. The graphics were criticized as especially ugly in 2008 when the PS3 was gaining popularity, and the narrative is hard to follow as the text moves automatically with no text log. Everything is timed, and knowing what to do next is very difficult without a guide. After gathering all your information throughout the year, you have a trial, which can result in different endings.

Screenshots

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More by Global A Entertainment

This page is from Underplayed Gems, a catalog of older and overlooked games. Not quite it? You can browse by platform and genre, or take this one into the 3D catalog and ask the Catbot for something closer.