ENA: Dream BBQ

One of the most textured, over-the-top games I've ever played. Feels very Dada by nature of being bored as ♥♥♥♥ and wanting to make whatever wacky, non-euclidean multi-media figure the creator's heart desires. I've seen like 1 ENA video and am certainly not being from whatever subculture the character was popular in, so I don't know the lore or whatever, I just like whatever LSDDE meets Bakemonogatari meets Stretch Panic meets Masaaki Yuasa ♥♥♥♥ it's smoking. Emphasis on Masaaki Yuasa because, like, have you guys seen Mind Game? Same kinda unfetteredness; most memorably similar in the scene where the main character meets God who shifts his form to a different little creature every frame. Very ENA. Seems to really get what aesthetically define the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sludge-den that is the internet, rapidly shifting languages, VAs, styles with no care for cogency. Got that exact type of collage of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the wrong query in an image-search will get you. Chock-full of references to all eras of gaming and animation that seems to resist critical thought, much like the digital chaos language all our brains speak. The lack of clear direction and ability to get at a characters intent or meaning while making all of them deeply memorable really plays to this memetic streak. At it's core, it's a little bit bland-modern indie, especially when you run out of optional animations for all the critters roaming about and have to do actual gameplay. The gameplay and puzzles aren't bad, just very bog-standard beneath all the wackiness that textures them. I also tried to get all the achievements through whatever crumbs of underreporting were dished out this early in the game's life-span, and was sort of just met with these banal side-objectives that overstayed their welcome. There's something very user-hostile with regards to trying to dig deeper. I found like twenty hidden walls from trying to really suck up the juices being served at this succulent barbecue, and almost all bore absolutely nothing of interest. This kinda clashes with the whole chaos and stupid amounts of detail everywhere else in the game and honestly just feels unfinished (which, like, it is) where it really felt in-character to do a sprawl of secret areas a la everyone's favourite RPGMaker dream explorer. It's cool as ♥♥♥♥, free as ♥♥♥♥, impressive as ♥♥♥♥ in a lotta ways, though I might suggest staying on rails.