"A Suda 51 Trip"?
Contrary to what that tagline would lead you to believe, little of what makes a proper Suda 51 trip actually exists in this game. But that’s for later.
Explain Shadows of the Damned
Shadows of the Damned is a Grasshopper Manufacture developed third person shooter that was advertised as the coming together of industry legends like Akira Yamaoka, Shinji Mikami, and of course Suda 51. The game was also part of the old EA Partner program in which EA would help support and publish games developed by studios not owned by EA themselves. You can probably guess how the combination of these factors ended up going.
I know I could talk more about the game as it is on its own terms such as the gameplay or story, but frankly, it’s really fucking hard to. This was a game that took so many years to make and every idea Suda had from his original concept kept getting shot down left and right by the publisher backing it. While No More Heroes 2 had come out a year prior, this game was definitely the tipping point in Grasshopper’s history where their increased notoriety from No More Heroes led to an expansion in size, taking on of multiple projects, and all of them facing some serious compromises at the behest of its various publishers (and thus hampering Suda’s actual creativity until Travis Strikes Again).
So why play this now? Well, because as the years have gone on, Suda’s return to the director’s chair with Travis Strikes Again shows he was willing to reflect back on his company’s history and acknowledge that, despite this game’s development, there were still good things that came of it. In addition, Suda actually was able to bring his original vision for the game to life in the form of a two-volume manga, possibly contributing to his coming to terms with the game as it was. Its name? Kurayami Dance (or Dance in the Dark).
Kura...yami?
Kurayami was actually the very first name Suda had for Shadows of the Damned back in its concept phase. As such, the manga Kurayami Dance is as close as can be to that idea but with clearly different characters and setting. Suda’s original idea was to create a game that was inspired by the works of Franz Kafka, most specifically that of his unfinished work The Castle. While the manga doesn’t necessarily make it a focus, the original game concept of Kurayami was based on the idea of darkness as the true enemy. You weren’t supposed to use a gun to fight things hiding in the darkness, but to wield a torch that would push away the darkness itself. Instead, Kurayami Dance stays truer to the concept of The Castle in which a man embarks on a journey filled with needless obstruction and weird diversions just to get to a single destination and do his damn job.
The manga is a really good read, and because of it and the game sharing the same origin point, I felt for this let’s play I’d make it into a sort of half LP, half book club. Each update posted will conclude with a discussion about a chapter from the manga (sometimes two), discussing parallels to the finished game, references to Suda’s past work, his themes, all that good stuff. Of course, viewers are more than welcome to read the manga as well, preferably right before the video where specific chapters gets talked about. Its translated and freely available to read online. Hell, it's even got Suda's blessing so why not take the time to check it out?
link to the manga
Get ready to see just how an actual Suda story and a story that Suda happens to be involved with can differ wildly from each other, as Kaboom Dragoon and I muse on what works, what doesn't, and go off on all manner of silly tangents as we dive into this Kafka yet not quite Kafka underworld road movie.
Contents
Part 1: Going to Hell at 300 km/h || Kurayami Dance Ch. 1-2
Part 2: Takashi Miike's Alan Wake || Kurayami Dance Ch. 3
Part 3: A Different Kind of Hell || Kurayami Dance Ch. 4
Part 4: Hakuna Tanaka || Kurayami Dance Ch. 5
Part 5: So I Saw "Your Bottom" || Kurayami Dance Ch. 6
Part 6: Garcia Likes His Dick in Crazy || Kurayami Dance Ch. 7
Part 7: Boners || Kurayami Dance Ch. 8
Part 8: Butt-Chin McFuckface || Kurayami Dance Ch. 9
Part 9: Ripped to Shreds by my Leather Mexican Baby || Kurayami Dance Ch. 10
Part 10: "Half-Assing" is this Game's MO || Kurayami Dance Ch. 11
Part 11: Turns Out Hell is Just Third Impact || Kurayami Dance Ch. 12
Part 12: The LP Curse Can't Stop this Shit Show || Kurayami Dance Ch. 13-14
Part 13: The End of Kurayami || Kurayami Dance Ch. 15-16
Part FINAL: Demon Keeps-a Dreamin' of a Demon Town
