Game:

Mad Rat Dead (2020)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 47:57

84 views

8

Always hard to let go. Let the nearly hour-long episode be a testament to that. As brief as the playthrough was, I had an unreasonable amount of fun.

One last time, I'll put some spoiler-y thoughts below. Just some text to act as a buffer here.

First, wow, that might be the second most stressful final boss I've fought in a game. Not sure it beats BLiNX's Chrono Horn, though (the stress of which was captured very well in my LP of it). Still feel a little cheated by the very last segment, given that the immortal enemies are new and it's weirdly hard to jump into that shield. Can't say it's not a climactic fight, though, regardless. Also might be good it eventually made me show off the game over sequence, I guess. I do feel at least a little proud of never getting a game over until then, especially while having to commentate simultaneously, since I've seen lots of people talk about having it happen a few times earlier on.

To be a little less vague about the whole "why is this bad for Rat God" thing now that we know what Heart is, it always seemed implied to me that Rat God was actually living in Heart from the beginning. In which case, doesn't she just end up back in a cat again, free to use him as a vector? If I was willing to give this game more credit, I'd consider the possibility she 1. just really wanted to enact her will on Mad Rat out of spite at this point, and 2. was faking her "oh no, you'll definitely be rid of me once and for all" at the end as a backup plan to let Mad Rat go ahead with putting her back in Heart. Nothing hints at this, though, and I don't think the story expects to be thought about that hard. It does add to the confusion of whether she's supposed to seem at all sympathetic, though. In any case, some fans have taken this idea and run with it, depicting Rat God with Heart after the main story. The biggest example would be a little collaboration called "Broken Heart" with a whole script and some art from various people, though I do have to admit it's a little mean to the cat as the name implies. Does explore Rat God's character potential a little more, though, which I do love, and carries the "accepting mortality" theme naturally into dealing with grief. While it certainly doesn't make her out to be kind, either, I do also find it very interesting that a lot of people like the thought of the main trio just getting along. I have this pet theory that a lot of people just want the catharsis of it after everything that goes on in this unexpectedly heavy game.

Speaking of which, I never really had a chance to mention that I've come to see the main cast as all tying into some specific aspect of death. Mad Rat's the most obvious, with the main conflict being accepting his own mortality, but Heart's personality and actions (namely his fixation of Mad Rat's impending death, rather than anything that happened to himself) make a lot of sense when you think of his role as being someone processing the coming loss of a loved one. Rat God's maybe a little bit of a stretch, but she does appear to be a character that absolutely must kill others in order to survive. Between that not being something that normally happens among humans (does often happen between different species, though, including humans), and her previously-mentioned uncertain sympathetic elements, though, I'm not sure it was really intended.

I do like how Heart being a cat gets foreshadowed in a decent number of ways in hindsight. He really likes cats, he claims to understand the black cat, he's very physically affectionate, and he even has a feline-esque eye to begin with. Rat God having come from the transplant (i.e. from Heart) also probably counts. At the same time, one does have to wonder how in the world a cat's heart got stuck in a rat. Is it any surprise that didn't work? Was that scientist really ever going to accomplish much? I just file it under "things you're certainly supposed to just take at face value," like anybody being able to turn back time.

I'm actually nearing the length limit at this point, so I guess I can't really use the description as an excuse to keep talking about the game even longer (even after recording this super long episode). Thanks again to everyone who stuck with this brief adventure. I was surprised to see the amount of attention it got compared to other non-licenced fare on this channel, and I'm really happy to have seen that some other people really enjoyed it, too.

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