DokeV

 Why do I like it so much?

Have you ever stared head-long into the abyss of insanity and seen it peering back at through void black eyes? Pointing, judging and throwing it's own absurdity back in your face, writhe with accusation and blie? Telling you that you're the problem element in this equation, for the crime of not getting aboard the train and joining the chaos. Only by fully surrendering yourself to it's throes can you hope to coexist amidst it's hurricane reckoning. Has, uhh- has that ever happened to you? Now that I say it out loud I'm assuming not, at least not unless you happened to be tuned into the Gameson event when the game, which I've had to look up the name of five times now, DokeV, made it's debut. And to be clear, I'm no stranger to absurdity or weirdness. I'm a Jojo fan for goodness sake, that's half of the show. But DokeV managed to truly weird me out the level of my comfort zone and make me truly feel like I had no idea what I was looking at. And you know what? That makes it a rare and special game already. So I want to talk about it today.

A lot of Gamescon was boring, I'll be honest with you. Just little titbits I didn't care about for games I forgot the moment after I saw them. (This year really wasn't for me.) Cavalcades of faceless and nameless games blasting past me a mile a minute, gone from the ol' frontal cortex in 60 seconds flat. (Back off neurologists!) So far the only games which managed to stand out were those that I had been made previously aware off and so were actually waiting for. (Oh, and Elden Ring, I suppose. Which got gameplay, but us paupers aren't cool enough to see it) Yet in that storm there was one game which leaned into being as bizarre and context-less as humanely possible, that won the 'first impressions' war, such to the point where I'm eagerly watching and actively want to untangle this mysterious hidden game post-haste, slightly fuelled on my feeling that the secrets of the the universe hide therein.

But what exactly is it about the DokeV reveal trailer that is- built different? (I'm sorry.) Well from the get-go I was struck by distinct artistic dissonance that only grew as the trailer went on, but which I found myself resonating with; as much of an oxymoron as that is. I'm talking about the way you've got this highly detailed and gorgeously lighted rendering of a city and country side (that I'm told resembles South Korea) roamed around by these chibi-esque big head cartoon characters that looks like they belong over in Splatoon or something. It looks like modern Dragon Quest characters taken out of their game and slapped into a modern Final Fantasy game; and I like it? Perhaps it makes the characters stand out, almost in a garish fashion. Or perhaps I'm drawn in by the harmless friendly design of the characters, and bid to stay by the lusciously rendered world. A 'best of both worlds' situation, if you will.

"So what?", you might say "you've got a city rendered with cartoon characters in it, big whoop. What do they do. What is this game's purpose?" And to that I say- uhh, I don't know. I haven't the foggiest. I've watched this trailer several times and I still haven't come to terms with the apparent fact that is an MMO of some form. But to be honest with you, I don't really care about the overall purpose of this game because literally every individual snippet of game looked fun to some degree. Isn't that wild? Just watching the characters skate across a busy road and swoop around slanted streets looks enjoyable just for exploring this lovingly created space. (I cannot overstate how much I love the look of DokeV's environments.) But then robots and stuff start showing up and I once again lose track of what's going on.

I'm trying to break it all down though, bare with me. So with full honesty, this game could just be a colourful tour through South Korea and I'd be fine with it, just like how the Forza Horizon games are essentially just prolonged tours across some of the most beautiful landscapes of the entire world. (Megalomaniacal secret maybe-backstory notwithstanding) But that is not what this game is, at least not in it's entirety, because around about the mid-point the trailer evolves into these various showdowns against rocket spewing robots in the eye of a hurricane. (I'm not making this up) And the action is palpable. In looks, at least, this combat looks exciting! (That may come down to the hurricane) You have colourful bursts, glittering particle effects, a camera that knows to stay far enough away so that you can see the action. (>Take notes 'Godfall'<) I can't pretend to know what the things that are being fought are, but that seems almost beside the point in this avalanche of activity.

In a fashion suited to randomness (that is steadily becoming 'normal' for DokeV) the non-human creatures featured are either atypical or next to unidentifiable. I mean they did go the lazy route a bit and show off an alpaca because "Hah. Alpaca so random and funny!", (Yes, Fortnite has driven that same 'Joke' to death, thanks very much) but they make up for that in the enemy design which ranges from robots to Michelin-man looking things, giant plushtoy crocodiles and pulsing neon bodies of light. This stuff is wild. And not creatively diverse in the manner that you'd expect from your recent Souls-like game, with thematically fitting but still bizarre monstrosities, no, these things look like the star of your latest fever dream. And again, I love it.

Maybe I'm just bored with conventional feeling experiences offered to me as a distraction from a world that no longer makes sense, and so I gravitate more towards the relatability of the abstract. Or maybe I'm reading too deeply into a game that somehow clicks the right pieces together in order to make something that shouldn't work on paper, work in video form. The rest of the trailer is just a mismatch of giant hammers, rocket propelled fireworks, swooping giant birds, lots of hurricanes, literal flight being taken by the player character and a pop beat so jumpy and excitable that I wouldn't have been surprised if this entire game was created merely to be a music video for this song. That makes more sense than the 'this is an MMO' narrative, considering there's been little to no evidence of the MMO elements of this game on display for us. 

Yet those in doubt need merely look at those involved. It's made by Pearl Abyss, the guys behind the Desert series of MMOs; and is anyone else thinking that these guys have adopted decidedly too many projects on their plate right now? I mean they already have an MMO out right now, they want to make another one which looks similar enough that it'll likely siphon players from their first one and now they want this game which, to be fair, is different enough that it'll appeal to a whole new demographic. Only, now the team are saying that this isn't an MMO? Now it's an Open-World Action Adventure game, huh? Well good to know the team are just as clueless about the game they're making as the rest of us. I Still want to see more though. What a trip...