Part 1: Jesus 1:1
Jesus ( sorry, Jīzasu: Kyōfu no Baio Monsutā ) begins with a little "attract mode" in which a green blur jumps across the screen until the arrival of this man: Hayao. Undeterred from having lost an eye and the ability to use combs in the freak surgery that gave him mirrors for knees, Hayao has compensated by wielding the world's least visible ray gun and honing his thumb war tactics against the abyss.
Hayao, as his one shoulder pad and small feet make clear, is prepared for these blurs and ready to battle whatever Monsutā await. I mean, if you were Jesus, and you were facing Hayao, you'd be dead, as it's well after 40 CE.
This is a game set in space.
Now you eat 3 XL hamburgers like we agreed.
Ha, this is 5 times now. If I can eat them I'll be fine. *munch* *chomp*
What's wrong? stuck?
U. u. uh
Cmdr's waiting, gotta go!
Aside from a handful of "cutscenes", 99% of this game is just looking at still images with text. To ease into this, the game starts us with half that equation. That's the last piece of user-friendly thinking we'll see.
Besides introducing the space trends of needlessly large space collars and batting away annoying giant space hair in space, this intro tells us things about Hayao. In previous missions, the combination of confinement and distance from home led to crews forming romantic attachments and becoming less able to focus on their jobs. People like Hayao, whose resume consisted largely of game quotes, are now hand-picked so this problem won't occur.
Our commanding officer is the Egyptian Nahas Ali, a serious man who took pains to make the cabinets match his shirts. Stylized as "Cmdr.", Ali is unique in that this is the only scene where he appears, and as such I've chosen to make him a Cmdr. 64 since his headshot doesn't fit with the rest.
Been waiting. We'll be using these cards on the mission. Quickly distribute them to the other crew on this lab.
This will cause far less confusion than you think.
Like a less advanced version of Snatcher, Jesus is really a jumbled up "visual" novel with pretensions of real design. A given room is shown as a static image and text output, and your choices are made from menus on the right. In general, I'll present things like this:
>Praise
Cmdr, you look great today!
Bah, just flattery.
Or like this:
>Flattr
When a choice gives us sub-options, like those three for "Speak", and I haven't shown the choices in a screenshot, I'll work it into the pseudo-command prompt, keeping the word as it appears:
>Look Desk
Are those the plans sir?
Yes, do your best.
>Look Ceilg
You okay?
Keeping an eye out.
Too many games.
>Look Pocket
Now what?
Could your beer card have slipped into here? I thought you'd given it up..
I'll get rid of it. You shouldn't have one at 18..
>Look Pocket
Still cards here.
Quickly fix that.
In some cases, picking an option multiple times gives a new option, in which case I'll list them sequentially rather than combining them into a block. If I completely ignore an option, it's because there was nothing of interest, usually a variation on "Nothing to say" or "I can't interact despite a menu implying I could". I'll be showing off all the dialogue that's either moderately worth seeing or required for beating the game, which comes out to about 95%. Jesus is damn near sadistic in what it expects to trigger event flags, and I'm not about to leave the True Jesus Experience unexplored. Like most of what I say, that might one day turn out to be a lie.
If we choose Go, we're allowed to explore the ship, which again is done solely through text. There are two rooms we can't visit because Jesus is bad at event flags, but we're going to visit the Infrmry, RecRm, and ElneRm in that order. The layout of this ship doesn't even pretend to pretend it's important, so don't worry if you're confused.
First, let's visit the Chinese Shu Hoka, showing off her uniquely Chinese giant space sleeves and space collarbone pincers in space. This game features the most multiethnic cast possible using only one color for skin.
>Speak
You're always pretty, Ms. Hoka.
Thank you, but whatever happened to Eline?
Oh? uh
>Look
You look great today!
Oh? Thank you Hayao.
>Give
Here is your ID card.
Thank you.
In retrospect, it might have made slightly more sense to distribute IDs before going 20k kilometers from Earth. It would be really easy to kill someone on this ship and take their place.
Next up, the RecRm. Everything that follows is in the Speak menu; please enjoy this smooth and organic characterization as we introduce pathos and themes for the game.
>Tease
Choke on your favorite food at all lately?
Next time you'll chug 5 liters of cola!
(Forgive me for not understanding the youth of the future of the past, but if losing makes you eat a food you like I have to wonder if they're doing this thing wrong.
>AskB.
Where's Carson?
Should be here soon, he wanted to play
>Cheer
Practice your best!
Yes! I will do so!
As I mentioned, this is a verbatim transcription of Niahak's earlier patch. The dialogue effectively captures the social skills and human interaction of those who, disillusioned with dumb jocks and women and nerds with actual skills and their moms treating them with shocking disdain, would fall back on soda and video games as they go into space.
>Thrtn
>Look Console
What a good score
Amazing.
>Look BksBlly
You've eaten too many hamburgers, my friend.
It is becoming a problem
>Look BksEyes
I like to imagine this scene as a dramatic soap opera with Balkas rejecting Hayao, as his (Hayao's) eye-spinning fetish only supported his (Balkas') addiction and Hayao's being kind of a creep.
>Take Console
Cmdr'll be mad if you do.
Too heavy.
>Take Hambrgr
Hands off my favorite food!
>Give
Your card from the the Cmdr.
My card? Thanks, Hayao.
Let's move on.
Hayao! How are you?
This is Eline, posing for a covershoot before her two-dimensional keyboard and introducing us to the fun of our character's name. Since it's often used as an interjection, I suggest mentally hearing "Hayao!" like a karate chop's "Hii-Yah!" or an Ed McMahon's "Hiyo!". In general, mentally reading these lines like a stereotypical kung-fu film probably won't bring down your enjoyment, particularly if the stereotypical French accent's in there as well. My fan-work, Jesus: Kyōfu no Radio Drama, will be starting recording next month.
>Speak
Eline, darker than the Chinese/Egyptian crewmates due to having once been outside, has since moved past that and become rather close to Hayao! She now spends her time with ironically retro faux-chiptunes. Please click for her
Sounds good.
>Look
Launch is soon. I'm a bit nervous.
>Give
Here's your card.
You're so cool! Thanks!
Because it's a Japanese game, the French Keyboard Mathematician easily impressed by our menial job is a tender 17, which has in no way impacted her ability to French Keyboard Mathematicize the ship. Eline is rather transparently our "love interest", and as far as I can tell this is actually her role in the crew. Turning to leave...
This one? Birthday present, right?
Yes. It makes great sound without remixing.
Amazing. This robot between us is ?
Isn't he cute? I named him Fojii. He's smart, but he's also a little bit silly.
>Speak
We'll be on separate ships awhile.
Fojii is playing with his ears throughout this scene, a higher priority for his cuteness-obsessed designers than legs that could actually move. FOJY (I swear this is my only translation note) is ENIX shifted one letter, and his function is to distract us from Eline having changed to her own cabinet-matching attire from the violet leggings worn in the previous frame. Her French accent, high heels, breast-accenting posture, and brown pants all an effort to seduce Hayao!'s mirror knees, Eline is fortunately saved from a romantic subplot by their shared inability to speak.
>Look
Yeah, let's just go somewhere else.
Yo, Hayao. I got the high score on Morph Monster.
Ah, here's my kind of guy.
>Speak
This is Carson, for some bizarre reason excited to go into space, whose hobbies include standing by tables to look like he's melting and being smug about his tiny cups. So far, we're remarkably low on exposition regarding a plot, but could this discussion with an integral part of the mission be the time to exposit some things?
I want to know the origin of life on Earth. We may find something helpful from the comet.
If we find some it'll be great.
We'll see.
>Look Card
That card yours? You need it to open your room. Better keep your card.
I'll do so.
Hoorah! Once again, it may have made sense to hand these out before making everyone spend 20k kilometers hanging around in the foyer, and I'm not sure how Eline got in her room without the card, and I'd think I'd know that keys are required if I'm working on the ship, but at last there's exposition! Jesus is the best keycard distribution sim I've played.
>Take
No getting that mug?
This mug is cool. (LPer's note: )
>Take
If I take Carson's chair hmm.
What?! Isn't that dangerous?
>Give
Here's your card.
Thanks, Hayao!
Mr Carson, done with the game?
I won't lose.
We're not done, even after seeing the RecRm twice; this combination of precise requirements and no communication is something Jesus absolutely adores. Talking to Eline was the flag to make Carson appear, and talking to Carson flags a new outcome when we talk to Eline. One of the most common experiences you'll have in this game is going back to check every single option because you didn't look at a table before trying to talk to a man, and it only gets worse as we go.
These options offer the same dialogue as before, so the only point is to tell us a lobby exists on this spaceship for less than a dozen people staying in space. Here we meet the two most important characters to the mission and by far the
On the left is Kaiser Wilhelm, equipped with an even more ridiculous lone shoulder pad and smug about lording over Carson with his newly-gathered even smaller mugs. Either someone who studies the Mat'ls of Stars or a Superstar Mat'ls Scient(olog?)ist, Herr Huyler is going to be completely ignored in favor of his friend. The slightly-less-smug Newt Gingrich-looking fellow may be mildly less of a Star, but his occupation cements him as the best character in this or any other game.
Because Captain Milakov is a SOVIET GALAXY WARRIOR!
Alright, at 20,000 km the title may be stretching it a little; "Galaxy" perhaps overstates that we're 5% of the way to the Moon. By this point, it was fairly well known that the Soviets were collapsing, their propaganda was lies, and most of them didn't have bread, but Japan might not have gotten the message, and I have no complaints. Any inconsistencies can be ignored because they allow Soviet Space Gingrich to realize his dreams. That said, his collar is also too large.
>Speak Mkov
Check on the Corona later.
Sure.
After either a mistake in translation or Hayao being thrilled about himself, Galaxy Man confuses us by bringing up the Corona and asking us if it's still there. Maybe the Starman's a better guy to ask.
>Speak Huyler
Ship 1 leaves soon.
Yeah, I'll be busy soon too.
>Speak Gingrich
Captain, when does ship 2 leave?
We leave 2 weeks after ship 1.
>Look Windw
The Comet's out there?
Yes, Jesus is the last stop.
This is confusing, and the really strange translation doesn't help. There are three ships: Jesus, Corona, and Comet. Corona and Comet are leaving Jesus to go to a comet (not Comet) in a staggered and isolating launch that offers no advantages at all. Commodore Man is staying behind to run a whole Space Lab himself while the rest of us split into teams, mit dem Deutschen Mann going on the Comet to the comet before we go to the Comet, at the comet, on the Corona, from Jesus, in 2 weeks. In other words, Herr Kaiser is completely incorrect and doesn't understand what he's saying, probably because he only speaks German in Japanese. It doesn't get clearer from here.
>Look Table
We don't play those games you play so much here.
I love mugs.
>Give
Your cards from the Cmdr.
Good work.
Note that we're still not quite done. We now have to return to the Infrmry.
Hoka was playfully teasing Hayao about his poor understanding of language while Hayao remarked that hands obstruct some light. It was one of the best conversations Hayao and any woman ever had.
>Look
You look worried. What is it?
Well
What is it?
I know you're busy, but can you ask Bellini for some data?
Leave it to me.
Bellini, a Computer/Composition/Comparative Engineer, is a model specimen of Italian SubCaptaining and an excellent source for nondescript data on, say, why Bellini's so great. Hayao, thrown off by this strange thing called confidence, will proceed to screw up his one simple task by asking for a wholly different thing.
Hayao! Been a while.
Ms. Hoka sent me for materials
I'll take them up to her later.
Thanks.
I doubt he knows what we mean either; he just wants to get back to sightreading morse code perpendicular to his face. The best errand-boy of all time? Clearly us.
>Speak
You designed the Jesus lab's computer net, right?
Yes, isn't it great? If you're not a pro, don't touch this.
>Look Bellini
What is it?
You always look so cool.
Ha, thanks. You too.
Oh Bellini, you
>Look Display
This? This is how I keep records. It's very useful.
Even on the comet?
Of course.
>Give
Oh, I brought your card.
Thanks.
Alright, we've failed at asking for something Hoka probably just had us get so we'd stop bothering her and could feel useful, and we're done with interactivity for the first part of the game. We've now met and distributed cards to every character in the Burger King Space Club with the lowest melanin:diversity ratio there is, and I've found the tragic lack of someone English means my Hetalia/Jesus crossover fic will never come to pass. Ready for an NES FMV?
Eager to get back to gaming, Hayao sees what once passed for "cinematic" as the ship travels in front of the
Specifically, we're heading off in this. The Corona, only the seventy-third least sensible design from Japan, is a reference to Revelation 1:14-17, where John describes Jesus like so:
John, reveling, posted:
14 His head and His hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes were as a flame of fire;
15 and His feet like unto fine brass, as though they burned in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters.
16 And He had in His right hand seven stars, and out of His mouth went a sharp twoedged sword, and His countenance shone as the sun shineth in his strength.
17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the First and the Last.
Everything's normal, autopilot seems to functioning.
I wonder if they've harvested the gas yet?
Yes, they got it earlier.
I want to see it too. Wonder if the comet is the source of life on Earth?
From left to right stand Hayao!, Hoka, Newt Milakov, and Carson, posing for the cover of a new space John Hughes movie with their letterman jackets and, in Hayao's case, bouffant. After a near
Those are the problem lights.
Emergency? We need to go!
Contact with the gas.. as a doctor, I should go myself.
We should send one scout. Hayao, go on the Inaduma to the Comet.
Yes sir.
Despite Hoka's argument (which, personally, I hope she includes with every suggestion she makes as a matter of course, e.g. "As a doctor, I think we need some eggs."), Hayao!'s our single scout. Our goal is now to figure out the problem, which the problem lights have failed to get across. As an LPer, I call that poor design.
Thankfully, the two-week delay in launching lets us easily catch up; the slower ship just got a fair head start. Carson is thrilled for this emergency (his coworkers may be dead, but he can run awesome regressions!), but we're even more excited, because we're playing ジーザス:恐怖のバイオ・モンスター and are done with distributing cards. Next time, we explore the Comet (not comet!). Jesus is a pretty cool game.
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(Bonus: Video Of The Launch)