Primrose | REVIEW SHOP [ OPEN ]

✦ { Ananas } Captivity

Plot:

The plot is coherent. I don't have the impression that it has any crippling mistakes that hinder the writing. The story is not particularly original I would say but that is not very important either given that, even with a banal story, you can sometimes get something interesting out of it. However, here I don't have much to work with or deal with, given the length of the chapters and their number. I don't quite know what to comment on.

The characters are taken prisoner in a video game. It is presented as a conscious choice on their part, but I must point out that the only choice they made was to buy a video game stating only that they would thus obtain the chance to escape from their world and change their lives in rather vague and simple terms, which is, it seems to me, the principle of most virtual reality games, and not a contract made with the player who agrees to renounce his true existence.

Plus, I find it odd that the characters aren't even really people who want to escape the real world but just play a video game. For example, Nia, who is seven years old in real life, does not show a desire to escape and even, when she sees her family for a moment, is happy, this is the case for almost every one of the characters, relieved to be back. They may well have been bored with their lives, but that does not seem to be their main motivation for playing video games. Many even seem quite satisfied with their lives, Demnin for example, shows his affection for his mother and does not seem to have a difficult relationship with her. Some didn't even seem aware that the point of the game was to be a sort of escapade.

Among all these people, the only person who wants to leave their daily life is Awandea, as is described at the beginning of the story, the others are not particularly concerned by this objective, which is even why they are scared as easily as soon as someone dies in the game. I guess I also have to count Nicole perhaps who makes it clear that she almost prefers the game to her world.

Then, I tended to find a way to solve the challenges they faced to be quite banal and not necessarily very inventive. When they are trapped in the hall, having to escape through the ceiling, they only succeed with a handful of means, making it on a human scale, benefiting from more advanced gadgets that don't require them to do anything... I would have preferred a test that requires more reflection from the team. from the players or which allows them to take advantage of what is around them in the room. Instead, the solution seems a bit quick and too simple.

It's the same thing as finding the princess of flora. Instead of gradually eliminating the green places where she could be using logic, Awandea, and Lumin manage to find her first because Lumin was able to buy a motorcycle.

I find it almost a little too easy but also surprising. How did he manage to raise so much money? I guess it's because of the number of people he killed, but even if he had killed two hundred, would that have been enough? And what about Demnin? How did he get enough to purchase six jetpacks when he didn't kill anyone? That's not my main topic here. What I want to say is that I find the obstacles they encounter to be too easy. The initial test shows this well. No team was disqualified. On the contrary, I think that making several people fail would have increased the pressure and shown how serious and dangerous the game is.

Also, I don't understand why the game allows participants to return home at regular intervals. How do we know if they won't get rid of the game in the meantime? If they won't run as far away as possible? What if they warn the authorities about what's happening? This seems like a huge risk and I think things would have worked better if they had all gone into a coma or had been replaced in the real world by copies. This would, at least, have worked better than this solution where they are left free to move around for a certain period. Some, like Eichi, may even make plans to try to thwart the game. I doubt that's what the creator of the game would want.