I’m not sure where to start Jewish. To quote Marty MacChicken: “It’s so ART I’m afraid to have an opinion.” I was going to ignore it completely after realizing that it was a largely Scottish country and I knew very little about Scotland. But at least I can say that I didn’t need to know anything.
This is not about Scotland. I’m not even entirely sure what it is. For some reason, it may literally be about reaching the Glass Mountain, but behind it is a mysterious, ornate dialogue about life and life. But at least I’m a little embarrassed that it’s not quite grok Judero I mean, I don’t think so Jewish would care. Jewish knows what it’s about and isn’t afraid to have fun while doing it.
Front and center z Jewish is his artistic style. I’ve said before that I hate the sudden trend of games using a stop-motion style of animation, where they remove frames to make it look like physical animation. It’s something that came up in the aftermath Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverseand it doesn’t work well unless the entire game has a diorama aesthetic. But Jewish it’s not stop-motion animation of that style. Jewish it is literally stop-motion.
Every 2D object in the game was hand-crafted and animated. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of models photographed in front of a blue screen and animated frame by frame. When you enter the house, for some reason it turns into hand-drawn characters. This creates a very surreal and unique look and I can honestly say I’m not a fan.
I’ve seen videos of Jewish it showed up a few times in development and I found the aesthetics off-putting. It has a sloppy, uneven quality. Perhaps this is intentional as the lighting isn’t even consistent, but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch. Many of the characters are dolls with evident joints and ugly piles of clay for faces, and others are hastily drawn by hand. They conflict with a basic 3D background and no thought is given to correcting the perspective. It looks terrible and I honestly wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Jewish reminds me of some AI scammers’ argument about generative AI “democratizing” art. This is idiotic. Art is already “democratized”. There are no barriers to self-expression. If you want to tell a story, you can draw faces on your thumbs and film them acting out. Don’t have a camera? Then just perform for your friends. Or at least yourself – art has nothing to do with popularity. You don’t even have to be good, you don’t even have to study or practice anything; you just need that spark of creativity. You need something to say, but if you were tragically born without a personality, I’m sorry, a robot won’t replace it.
Jewish it’s a game made up of programming, crafting materials, and something to say. The creators had an idea and implemented it. The fact that the graphics are so repulsive not only gives the game a superficial identity, but also exposes hidden intentions. What Exactly what I’m trying to say is, again, I admit I don’t really know.
There’s potentially a lot of Scottish folklore and maybe a bit of history here, but I wouldn’t recognize it. However, as I mentioned, you don’t have to know anything to be drawn into this world. The action takes place at an unspecified time in a placeless area that can only be described as “Scotland”. Walk into any home and you never know what you’re going to get. While sewing, you may discover three women singing “The House of the Rising Sun.” Maybe there’s a weird person out there who will tell you about microdosing hallucinogenic mushrooms. Other times you will hear a fairy tale or just an unprovoked melancholy story.
Most of the time it’s poetry, but not always. Like the art style, the writing is uneven and makes no sense. He simply stays where he pleases, fulfilling every whim that appeared in the artist’s head at that moment. It’s unmoored, which makes it hard to ever feel fully invested.
And don’t look to the gameplay to save you. The world is meager and full of hidden barriers. Judero can possess creatures to solve puzzles, but often you just hit them with a stick. Perhaps there is less depth to the combat, such as: The Legend of Zelda: A Connection to the Pastbut without the engaging world and puzzle design to sustain it. It’s never uncomfortable to play, but it’s not a foundation on which to build a tonal miasma.
At least the pace is good. Each of the four acts consists of a enormous, open environment, with each objective usually branching off in a different direction. The third one is the largest and allows you to sail from island to island by ship with an orangutan by your side. The variety and pace at which it changes makes it very effortless to get through the 5-6 hours it will likely take you to see the end.
This is rather crucial because the narrative doesn’t have enough comprehensible depth. There aren’t really any characters to get to know, apart from the extremely competent Judero himself, the down-to-earth Scottish Kazuma Kiryu. The world is so strange that it is hard to find support in it. The main conflict is that someone outright tells Judero what he should do, and he will do it.
This makes it very hard to really say why Jewish it’s such a successful game and why it’s worth playing. Maybe that’s because its anarchic and confused design is an antidote to the impersonal and overly polished games that make up its largest market sector. There are enough “inspired” games that try to replicate the successes of others, and few that are as human. Jewish it says a lot in its turbulent mix of sadness and fantasy, thoughtfulness and fun. What he’s saying is a bit of a mystery to me, but I can hear him talking and I could listen to his voice all day long.
