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Short Peace: Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day - Cheap Thrills

 



Games today are designed to keep you hooked, consistent feedback loops trying to keep

you playing for hours on end. Metrics matter nowadays, it’s not about how much you spend,

it’s how much of your time is invested into a single title because then you’re not engaging

with any other titles. battle passes, seasons, the like, it’s all designed to keep you engaged,

giving you little nuggets of affirmations so you continue to chase the next dopamine hit.

It’s not for your own volition, it’s for the little pop ups saying “you did good” giving you

external justification for your time, whether or not that time was actually “fun”.


Now what if there was a game that didn’t just do away with all that, but got out of your way as

quick as it started?

Short Peace: Ranko Tsukigime’s Longest Day, released in 2012; developed by Grasshopper Manufacture makes its statement and gets out, yet I have more to say about it after a single playthrough than I do about Grand Theft Auto Online after hundreds of hours of play/. 

Ranko Tsukigime’s Longest day is directed by SUDA51 and is a part of an anthology series titled “Short Peace”, with each episode representing a specific era in Japanese history. The outlier, being modern day, portrayed through the game. The story starts off like your typical slice of life anime, with our protagonist, Ranko, leaving school with her friends before heading home, which turns out to be an underground parking lot. However, in a twist her “home” is a series of shipping containers which revolve via cranes bringing individual rooms to each other. This scene is visually striking and delivers the game’s mcguffin, Ranko’s mission is to kill her father. 

The game itself is a standard side scrolling hack n slash, with visually uninteresting backgrounds but made up for with striking hit effects and fast paced action. The player is urged to constantly progress as failing to do so will result in them being engulfed by a void, alluded to be baddies which hassle her in a cutscene pre-level. There are no skill trees or upgrades, just run right, hack away, avoid the void, and try and snag some collectibles on the way. The collectibles unlock concept art which provides some incentive to try and do better runs along with the scoring at the end of each level.

Style over Substance

What you play this game for, really, is the cutscenes and the set pieces.

Each section is opened with a cinematic bearing its own unique style, from manga, to 2010s anime, to highly stylised 3D, and just pure chaos. The set pieces are fairly simple, one has you on a hovering motorcycle avoiding a dragon’s attacks, another is a platforming challenge somewhat reminiscent of Atlus’ Catherine and the grand finale is an 8-bit wrestling mask-off. A homage to one of Suda’s passions. The constant variety in presentation and boss fights keeps you hooked to the end, as you’re just engaged and wondering “what’s next?” especially during your first playthrough. It’s a short and simple game that makes the most of its low budget.

Short Peace has lived rent free in my head ever since I completed it.


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