I still remember that afternoon, the sun shone through the curtains on the PSP screen, and I was saving and reading a line from Narita Phoenix in Ace Attorney. At that time, what we held in our hands was not only a game console, but also a youthful time.
I recently downloaded a game called "Plastic Surgery Game" on my mobile phone. To be honest, I didn't have high expectations at first. After all, no matter how beautiful the graphics of today's mobile games are, it still lacks the feeling of "holding the whole world in your hand" like the handheld games of the past. But as I played, I was brought back to my youth by that familiar sense of immersion.
The story is about a girl named Yi Rong who works at BGB Fashion Media Company. No matter how good her performance is, she can't compete with her pretty face. Isn't this a portrayal of the "face-based era" when we watched "NANA" or "Paradise Kiss"? 😢 The interactive form of the comic adaptation reminds me of when I played "Ace Attorney" on the GBA, and every decision I made was like competing with myself. But "Plastic Surgery Game" is even more cruel - it allows you to use the "Plastic Surgery APP" to change the appearance of the heroine yourself, and then watch her lose herself step by step on the road to beauty.
Although playing games on mobile phones today lacks the thick feel and crisp feedback of pressing buttons on the PSP, the interactive feel of dots and strokes on the touch screen is also quite interesting. Especially those branch options, it seems like I have returned to the days when I was holding the NDS and poking at the screen, my youth is back all of a sudden! 😭
But to be honest, the plot of this game is much darker than I expected. Back then, when we played "428 Blocked Shibuya" or "Memories of Autumn" on handheld devices, although they also talked about human nature, they did not so straightforwardly reveal the cruelty of "appearance is justice". Seeing Yi Rong stepping into the abyss of desire step by step, my heart beat loudly - isn't this the temptation that many people face in reality?
The developer Shenzhen Kesheng Network Technology is very good at combining the visual tension of comics with the selection mechanism of the game quite naturally. The free mode is also good, at least I haven't encountered a wall of extortion yet. Of course, compared to the days when you could buy a pirated cassette for a few dollars and complete the game, the current in-app purchase culture is really embarrassing. But having said that, I am very satisfied to be able to relive this feeling of "playing comics" on my mobile phone.
If you also miss the time when you secretly played text adventure games in bed with a handheld console, you might as well try this "Plastic Surgery Game". It will remind you of those nights when we worried about the characters and repeatedly saved the files for our choices. It will also let you see that in this age of looking at faces, some things have never changed. 🌈