The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood Review (Vitlöksbjörn)
Imagine, if you will: you're playing a new 3D Mario game. You're having a lot of fun exploring the levels, taking in the aesthetic, enjoying the simplistic low stakes plot about getting a cake or something. You reach the midpoint of the game and...
Suddenly, Bowser is explaining to you that it's imperative you fix the castle's plumbing system, or else entire Mushroom Kingdom will be without drinking water. He's telling you the social implications of different approaches; you can't disagree. You think it's just going to be one event, or some kind of cutscene - but no. And then you find yourself playing a game about complex pipe construction, with realistic engineering, limited resources and a completely, completely different vibe.
Ok, from some kind of conceptual viewpoint it makes sense, Mario is a plumber and a hero. But that's not the game you wanted to play. That's not what you've been enjoying so far. Would you be disappointed? Or would you actually love it?
What???
That's pretty much what my Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood experience was like. I was playing an amazing game about divination, art, relationships, womanhood, isolation, and then I found myself playing Suzerain; or some kind of prequel to it.
What I'm about to tell you isn't much of a spoiler - it's written right in the game description: "shape the fate of the cosmic Witch society". What do you think this means? Some kind of epic struggle perhaps?
Well, no. You participate in an incredibly realistic, detailed and mundane election campaign. Slogans, digging up dirt on your opponents, careful consideration of your program, and day-to-day power struggles to undermine your opposition. It's mundane enough that it actually makes you completely forget that you're a group of immortal celestial beings.
Politics in muh vidya
I can kinda see why this is the case. The game's about witches, so its leftism is part of its DNA - after all, being a witch is one of the oldest ways of challenging the status quo for a woman. Many things which the "modern gamers" decry as the worst thing in the world are - correctly - presented as commonplace here. It's very queer, sexually liberated and female-centric; in this world, femininity is a prerequisite to ascending as a witch - not necessarily "biological" femininity, mind.
As such, since almost all characters are women, you are treated with a wide variety of body types. You know how often in games you have essentially two female body types, big booba momma and fresh teenag-ish girl, both perfectly slim and shapely? Well, let's just say it's not like this here. You have bigger girls, taller girls, muscular girls, petite girls, and distinctly non-human girls. If you expect oversexualised eye candy, I suggest you look elsewhere.
I brought this up because, unfortunately, the only ways to make any visible change as a leftist seem to be: either go into politics, or f*ck sh*t up. If you're particularly disadvantaged, you need to do both. And I'm guessing this is this game's way of communicating this sad truth.
Seven-year-long orgasm
Yes, it's a thing in the game. Anyway, this is why I have such strong feelings about the game. It's fantastic. And then it becomes this. There's a lot to love about it, although there are some ironic limitations which I'll leave you to find out for yourself. Because even though I don't recommend this game, I also kind of do, as the first part is just excellent.
And this excellence is what makes the crash into this election nonsense so painful. I honestly was willing to power through it, thinking it's just going to be a short episode, but then when the next chapter started and I saw "32 cycles left" in the corner... I gave up. That's how much I hated it.
Conclusion
I hope that there are people out there for which this review will actually be something that makes them play it. There's clearly an idea, a vision here. A meticulously crafted one, to boot; but a vision that is unfortunately not my vibe. In spite of everything else.
So if you're the kinda witch that does tarot and brews exotic teas... but also helps out at your local leftist party's office and occasionally throws a brick at a policeman, then this game might actually be your idea of perfection. We certainly could use more witches like those in our world, anyway.
As for me, I will continue my increasingly more hopeless search for a good witchy game.
My journey so far