Heavy Rain – A strange game. This is not to say that she is mercilessly bad. But she has problems. The article analyzes plot turns, so spoilers, spoilers and spoilers again.
For me personally, a plot turning with the personality of the killer was a key problem for me. Here lies a large number of oddities and inconsistencies. We’ll talk about this.
In the game, four characters are in parallel: Ethan Mars, Scott Shelby, Norman Jaden, Madison Page. All of them are searching for a serial killer nicknamed Master Origami. This killer abducts children (only boys), locks the victims in a well, gradually filled with water, and allows them to die. Fathers of the stolen boys receive messages from the killer with hints where their sons are hidden.
At the first passage, the player has the opportunity to decide which of the main characters is the most sympathetic to him. The focus is Ethan Mars – Father with a child. Moreover, a couple of years before, Ethan lost another son who died under the wheels of a car. This event greatly influenced Itan. He is melancholy, depressed, prone to depression. After the loss of his first son, Ethan is divorced with his wife, he cannot return to a full life. Players rarely like similar natures. Itan grief has good reasons, but people like to play for the strong spirit of characters. Ethan is weak, but at the same time ready for anything to save his last son. The second such loss, he simply will not survive. At the beginning, the game throws the players with a bait: Itan has failures in memory, obscure visions, after which he finds Origami figures in his hand. The unfortunate father himself concludes that the “master of origami” is his evil alter ego. This version turns out to be false and is in no way explained. Like, they just teased, and enough.
Madison Page -representative of the type of type “Journalist” common in films-games-games. A young woman who is obsessed with the idea of writing a book/reveal the case/convey the truth. The personification of public conscience. Madison repeatedly saves Itan and helps him throughout the game. It is strong in character and can give a head if required. With a certain passage, Madison may open the personality of the killer earlier. Miss Page has some mental problems associated with the mania of persecution. Perhaps in the past she was a victim of violence. But this aspect of her personality is never disclosed in more detail.
Norman Jaden – A curious character. Young and eccentric https://fivecascasino.co.uk/ agent of the FBI, such a cross between Fox Malder and Dale Cooper. Jaden suffers from drug addiction and is obsessed with his work. The local police meet Norman coolly and even with a mockery, but this does not reduce his enthusiasm in the search for a criminal. Jaden could become a beloved hero for many, he collects and analyzes evidence, interrogates the suspects. But throughout the game he is not given so much time.
Scott Shelby – A private detective, as if descending from the pages of a noir detective. Former cop, middle -aged, having health problems, tired of life and drank all, but stubbornly walking along the trail of the dead children. With a certain passage, Scott generally becomes the coolest character in the game. He saves the owner of the store from a robber, protects a prostitute from an aggressive client, prevents the suicide of a young mother, takes care of a small child. Shelby plot branch seems the most interesting. The detective follows the trail of the suspect – the disgusting rich son of a local criminal authority. Dad’s money helps a villain avoid justice, but Shelby is inexorable and incorruptible. One of the brightest scenes in the game is a shootout in the mansion of the criminal boss, where Scott puts the crowd of guards and knocks the truth from the bastard covering the crimes of the vicious son. Shelby can allow the offender to die or save his life, epic with retreating from a defeated mansion. At the first passage, I eagerly hoped that Shelby would cross in the process of investigating Jaden (well, yes, in the end they would cross), worried that Scott would most likely die in the final battle with a maniac. I turned out to be a naive person. Because the main plot twist is Scott Shelby and there is a master Origami. Eh … I do not get into the gameplay, but with the plot there is clearly something wrong here. And here we will deal with our belated analysis.
The reception itself, when one of the main characters is a killer, has long been widely used. This chip is used to implement a wider unspoken principle “The killer is the one you are You will never think “. Compliance with this rule allows the detective to be interesting and surprise the reader/viewer/player with a plot denouement. This principle has been trying to observe since the time of English classical stories about the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. You must be surprised either by the personality of the killer or the circumstances of the murder, receiving logical explanations in the final and satisfying your curiosity.
But the guys from Quantic Dream were too carried away by an attempt to shock the player. Shock for the sake of shock and shock drives. What kind of maniac came from Scott Shelby?
Throughout the game, the Master Origami creates for a father trying to save his son’s life, a number of tests. Ethan and his son Sean are not the first victims of the maniac. Origami constantly modifies his system, pats bugs and all that. For example, one of the previous fathers (store owner) did not understand the message of the maniac and did not take part in his cruel game. So I said the word “game”. Who can be compared with Origami masters? That’s right, with John Kramer. They both have a kind of cruel “game” with trials for its bad participants. Blood traps, cruel philosophy explaining what is happening.
John Kramer looks at the master of origami as … disapprovingly, in general, looks.
I am in no way admired John Kramer, he is a killer and all that. But the “saw” really has some rules. If the game participants observe them, then they can survive. True, stay without a hand or leg. What do we see with the master Origami? If Ethan Mars overcomes all trials and finds his son, Shelby himself personally is to kill the unfortunate father. That is, in the game Origami can not be won, because he flies. She Shelby comes to shoot Itna meanly. The person who started in the mind, having lost his first child, and gave everything to save the second. After the murder of Itan, Sean, according to the conceit of the master of origami, should slowly and painfully choke on water. If there is some evil in the world behind the line of evil, then this is just his example.
The fact that Shelby is an incredibly cruel villain does not prevent him from being a miserable nun and smeared. Recall the “saw” again. John Kramer, being deadly ill, demonstrated the extreme neglect of his own death and peculiar masculinity. He even made his death an important element of one of the “games”. Master Origami complains and whines how hard he lives. He manages to fly even in a conversation with Itan, on whom he instructed a gun, so much a killer needs at least a pinch of sympathy. The developers even refused the villain in the right to adequately go into another world. At one of the possible endings, being on the edge of death, Shelby begs Norman to save him, clinging to the last to the likeness of life. If Norman hears the maniac pleas, then Shelby will take advantage. There is a feeling that someone from the developer team fiercely hates noir detectives and private detectives. You need to try very hard to cram in one character so much brutal cruelty and prohibitive meanness.
So who is Scott Shelby? Cold -blooded techno -maid with its unhealthy philosophy? Definitely not. Dressing talk that “I have been looking for a father for many years who would sacrifice everything for my son” poorly knit with an attempt to kill the father and son, despite the fact that they fulfilled all the conditions and passed all the trials. Then philosophy is not important, murder for the sake of murders? Bloodthildren’s crazy, living in captivity of his own madness? Not either. We do not demonstrate his mental disorder. The inhuman cruelty of the actions of the master of origami is strangely combined with the lack of sadistic inclinations directly in the behavior of the killer. He is calculated, tries to act thoughtfully and protect himself. Shelby is not trying to deliberately cause pain to his victims. Killing, he is more preoccupied with how to cover the tracks and not get caught.Then, maybe he is a psychopath hiding his bestial gut? Good version, but it is not disclosed by the developers. If you wish, you can dig and find individual signs of psychopathy in Scott, but this is already thinking and attracting facts. Master Origami based on the results of the game – a patchwork character, a set of mutually exclusive factors. It is difficult to consider it as an integral villain. In their pursuit of unexpected turns, the developers ruined a potentially interesting hero, without revealing his transition to the dark side. Yes, there is a story with his brother and the cruelty of his father, but these individual facts simply throw the player in the face, and there are causal relationships between them on their own.
Let Scott Shelby personally remain a tired and reliable servant for me, who is too old for all this . to which he was dipped. And the problem is not that it was he who turned out to be a maniac. The creator has the right to turn the hero into a villain. Or vice versa. The problem is how Shelby turned out to be a maniac. And why did he find himself at all.