I played THE BLADEINGTONS CAMPING ADVENTURE
[Finished June 12th, 2023. Rating: 5/10]
You probably expected that I’d be posting a review of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 next (honestly, so did I), but because I’m simply so spontaneous and full of whimsy, I decided that it would be funny to play a Xenoblade fan visual novel by one of my favorite artists online before finishing the main series. And you know what? I’m really happy I made that decision, because it ended up being a super enjoyable experience with a decent amount of engaging messaging. THE BLADEINGTONS CAMPING ADVENTURE isn’t just silly slice-of-life scenarios — it also builds up a cool emotional core about its protagonist’s difficulty to find meaning within connections with others, culminating in a final segment that had me legitimately kinda emotional. Despite its short length, I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who’s played the first three games.
Before I get into the actual depth of the story, I just want to say that it does such an excellent job selling its basic premise. The prose and dialogue writing are both actually so good, the humor is absolutely hilarious, the atmosphere is really engaging (calling back to Never7 in both its premise and the ton of Infinity music it uses, including stuff from N7), and it all just coalesces into a super cozy and fun time.
The way TBCA writes its narrative is fairly clever as well, because it actively takes advantage of its premise and the false expectation that it’ll just be fluff fanfic stuff in order to tell a story from the perspective of a guy who also expects it to play out that way. It’s not a super present metanarrative or anything, but it’s definitely fun to see the expectations one would have for this type of fangame used in this way. Subverting expectations isn’t all it has going for it though; regardless of external stuff, I think it’s an interesting character study of Alvis trying to justify his detachment from others by fixating on his life as defined by ‘greater purposes’. The way this seeps into his basic interactions with people in everyday life is fun to watch play out, from him not fully seeing himself as a person to depersonalizing his own desires and more that I don’t want to spoil because this game is very short and I could end up describing all of it pretty easily.
One other thing I liked about it was its take on Malos. While it definitely wasn’t as in-depth as the Alvis stuff, it was neat to see a more casual side of him that he fundamentally couldn’t have presented in the Xenoblade 2 main story, especially with all of the implicit depth and humanization it brought him when contrasted with canon. Something you might already know about me is that I’m very much not a fan of the Torna DLC for Xenoblade 2. I think it’s awkwardly put together and does nothing meaningful to expand upon the characters in a way that increases the impact of their stories as told in the main game. But what this fangame does with Malos feels like exactly the thing everyone says Torna does of supposedly showing the characters in a different light to further their stories through the contrast between their behavior between the two stories — except actually executed well and emotionally resonant. Honestly, I kinda wish the main games expanded a bit more on Malos this way. Oh well.
Regardless, TBCA is absolutely a worthwhile play if you’re interested in seeing fun new takes on at least two cool Xenoblade series characters. Or if you just want a game that’s insanely funny and enjoyable. My 5/10 score probably seems low, but it’s honestly really impressive that something this short and sweet achieved that with the amount of time it had.
