I was a courious about the game, then i saw this review, and i am not going to play it. Why? Is not because is about rape, is because a RAPE game with all those bugs and flaws is not worth it. I have seen like 4 Different reviews with different opinions about this but for me this is the best one.

I am completely agree with you, but i am going to say the following: The game has some clever points in the way he was meant to be, but smart twists and turns are not good storytelling if there is no history to tell.

Anyway thats my humble ignorant opinion…

Excellent Review Alucard…

Sorry about my english, i am still learning…

It’s a horror game. It’s supposed to make you feel uncomfortable. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t rely on body or shock horror. Gamers are so used to not having any emotional involvement in games (perhaps at all) that when a game like this comes along it scares them in a way they just don’t know how to deal with.

The only game I can compare this to is Planescape: Torment when playing as an evil Nameless One.

This is perhaps the second game to toy with the player emotionally in a way that’s unique to a game: your own actions.

Then again, maybe I’m wrong.

Oh well.

This game is ART, just like ALL GAMES. Except this game tries so so so very hard to be art, and its themes nearly all revolve around RAPE. This game is a piece of shit, and not worth anybody’s time.

And I’d really like to thank everyone here for having such a courteous, intelligent discussion. This site has been an amazingly refreshing find in the usually flame-war-torn landscape of gaming forums. This is definitely going on my favorites!

I don’t really have room here in the comments to do the whole “What is folklore” bit. Thankfully though, I do have a piece on the site from November 2005 from my folklore column talking about what folklore is. Man, this is old but relevant!

It’s a nice introduction to what folklore is and how it’s basically oral/written anthropology/sociology and archaeology.

Anyway, ToT made several big mistakes. The first is that a fairy tale has to be accessible to children. Not written specifically for mindy you but ACCESSIBLE and UNDERSTOOD. By making this an “Mature” game with a lot of vague commentary, it automatically disqualifies this as a fairy tale. A fairy tale can indeed be written for adults, as several were, but part of the taxonomy is that child can still hear or read the story and understand the base level as well as the metaphor. If you decide to study folklore, you’ll encounter “The Précieuses” and Madame D’Aulnoy. She wrote two full books of fairy tales meant primarily for adults. However she knew her children would want to hear her stories as well as the children of her servants, so even those adult tales are told in a way that any single digit child can understand them and walk away with the moral. However, as Fairy Tales (regardless of which classification system you use and there are several) are always designed with the purpose of teaching the reader a lesson in morals, behaviour or how to be a good member of society, The Path fails in that regard as it does none of those options. It’s dark for the sake of dark bordering on pretentious fluff and shock value.

A neat comparison to those early folk tales would be the very early Warner Bros. Bugs Bunny cartoons and the like. They too were as much for adults as children but over the years they softened and became primarily only for children. There’s some great pieces that go into detail on this.

Another area is that a fairy tale must be simple, deal primarily with archetypes and characters are simple. Again, this is an area where The Path falls short, even with the simple aspect.

Third, as you play as the little girls in this game and actively guide them to their doom/demise/ending/what have you the biggest point of the Fairy Tale is missed – the child (or reader) in question is meant to learn NOT to do what the protagonist did to cause harm or a temporary dillema for them. By guiding six girls to a similar fate by similar means, The Path has in fact become, an ANTI-Fairy tale. A darker reflection of the intent of this oral and literary genre, which can be pretty dark to begin with. As such, ToT missed the boat in spectacular fashion.

Finally Fairy Tales are usually interpreted with a Jungian of Freudian literay criticism style. Even though you know, large groups of people discredit Freud, it’s still the school most used. If you’re using Freudian LC, it’s almost impossible to not interpret The Path as “Rapeapalooza 2009.” Jungian would give it an easier time, but the end result is still “That’s a lotta rape!”

I hope this helps James. I’m actually going to have to stop talking about The Path for the weekend as I have reviews of Mana Khemia for the PSP and Valkyrie Profile 3 for the DS to start on. The first VP, by the way, is a far better use of folklore, mythology and the like then The Path in every way possible. I can’t think of any possible rape interpretations either. ;-)

Gamers as a whole NEED to have discussions like this. Intelligent debate and discourse rather than sitting around flipping virtual middle fingers or saying “You suck.” Yes, we can be passionate and sometimes heated when we disagree but name calling and talking without listening to the otherside has given our fandom a well earned negative stereotype. Even if we part disagreeing on the Path both intellectually and tech wise, at least we were able to have this discussion like mature adults. That’s what matters most to me.

On another note, you mention several times that Tales of Tales missed the point of fairy tales in the first place. I’m rather interested in both games and folklore, although I have no serious education in either. What, in your opinion, is the point of fairy tales, and how can a game convey this point? Are there any games that have done so successfully?

Sorry for the slightly off topic question, but I’m really interested in the subject of folklore in games.

If the archives over there for an article about “the highgate vampire” are still up you should check the edit history. OMFG – hilarious.

Same to John. Please don’t take my last comment to you as insulting or snarkey. I was just saying I’ve read the original French version of Perrault’s tale and the focus here is more on the fact that Perrault’s tale is considered the original of LRRH the character NOT the overall folktale. Perrault added the red hood and the symbolism it stands for. If you see rape in it (much like I see Rape in The Path) I’d be a hypocrite for saying it’s not there. I’m just saying that the overall focus on study on the first LRRH tale is on the hood itself.

Anyway to Matz! I pulled my quote from ISBN 978-0486424767 Les contes en vers et en prose which is great because it’s a Dual Language book and you can read a decent English translation along with the french version. For those that read French rather can get the more complete Les contes de Perrault (ISBN 978-1421206028 . You can also check out Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook by Alan (ISBN 978-0299120344 ), Steven Swann Jones’a Article ‘On Analyzing Fairy Tales: “Little Red Riding Hood” Revisited’ from Western Folklore (Microfiche it maybe? It’s from 1987) and Victor Laruccia’s ‘Little Red Riding Hood’s Metacommentary: Paradoxical Injunction, Semiotics and Behavior.’

As for tracing the legend back further than Perault to known oral examples, you can go as far back as The King’s Book aka the Codex Regius. That was written in the late 13th century and many (but not most) folklore scholars claim this was the origin of the Little Red Riding Hood myth. All of these were minstrel tales and or songs that were passed through the norse culture by song. At one time (and you’ll see this in some of the pieces I named for you. Sæmundr fróði was at one time considered the originator of the tale and it was belived it passed to France because he lived and studied there for part of his life. However more scholars than not doubt this now.

You can go back even further and find the story in the תַּנַ”ךְ or the Jewish bible. I have to admit though. Taking יוֹנָה as the source origin of Little Red RIding Hood is a fascinating idea, but I’m skeptical on it. So are most of the rabbis I’ve talked to.

Anyway, I hope this helps. We’re really gone off topic which is a disservice to the Path and Tale of Tales. We should probably re-rail the conversation back onto the game itself and the symbolism (or lack thereof) and the overall quality of the game because otherwise we’re all going to look like pretentious gits to people new to reading this. :-) You’ve got my email right? If you want to do more on the folklore, we should do that there or maybe start a thread in the forums. The Nyogtha section on the site here also is a collection of some of my folklore (and cooking) pieces if for some reason you want to go into those as well.

Which, when you think about it, ties in rather well.

And you can easily go back and find earlier oral versions of LRRH before Perrault along with who told them. Again, it’s actually studying the legends and being able to cite works. Amateur Internet key word searching generally provides more erroneous information than not, especially with these sorts of things.

John – from your comments again, it’s obvious you’re unaware of even the basic trapping of folklore and fairy tales, and you probably have neither read Perrault’s story or can read/write in French. That’s not meant to be mean or snide. I’m just saying Perrault has written commentary where no, his version of the story does not have any intended rape subtext on his part and anyone who has read it would know that immediately.

There are many other games that deal with the same issues as The Path. Rule of Rose and Theresia for example. Where both RoR and The path are HORRRIBLY designed from a technical standpoint, with poorly done gameplay and glitches up the wazoo, RoR has a far more compelling story and is actually creepier then The Path, so I’d say RoR is a few steps up from The Path and able to keep that artistic merit that The Path strives for while only suffering from a fraction of the bugs The Path has.

Theresia on the other hand is crazy dark and definitely covers topics equally as taboo, if not more so. But it’s amazingly well done in just about every way. Well, it is kind of ugly.

Half my rancor is indeed directly at the idea that anyone would somehow find leading your protagonist to their mental and physical destruction as entertaining along with TOT (and obviously several of the game’s fans) inability to understand what the point is of folk tales, how they are told and why. The other half is simply that indie game or no, this thing needed at least six momnths more of playtesting.

And Alex, the Little Girl in The Pretty White Dress is not a wolf. But someone who looks suspiciously like her is. In my case, both the wolf and the Little Girl in The Pretty White Dress were there and it was… interesting.