When Fran Bow first launched, people started arguing: are the nightmares visiting the heroine actually real giving the whole story a mystical tilt or is this all simply a creation of her ill mind? To answer this question, we need to focus on how schizophrenics see this world. And of course, play the game! There is a lot about it that can bewilder or even avert you. The point is that any person can come up with some kind of nonsense, but a schizophrenic never stops there. In genuine madness, there is always a perverted logic linking all oddities together… and it is this delusional thoughtfulness that can be observed in Fran Bow.
The world of the game is frighteningly logical. This is a pure truth. It seems that absolutely insane tin is going on in him, but nevertheless, the main character brings rational explanations for any events. And now you are already flying with a three-meter skeleton in a tuxedo towards ultra-reality, fighting kamalis, combing luciferns and looking for an audience with Mabuki. It seems to be sheer nonsense, but during the game all this looks quite logical and even appropriate to you. Here she is the power of madness! The setting of Fran Bow is so thoroughly thought out and riddled with so many pseudo-logical connections that this perverse rationality becomes the main argument in favor of total and uncompromising schizophrenia.
There is no mysticism in this plot. There are no five realities and talking cats. There is simply a sad and tragic story about a seriously ill girl who is getting worse and worse. And while the first chapter of the game seems quite realistic (It’s called “My common sense”), the further we plunge into her grim fantasies, the more frightening and irrational her hallucinations become. The titles of the chapters also hint at this – split personality, vegetative state, imaginary friend, doctor’s instructions. It is clear that Fran never escaped the hospital, did not meet with giant ants and did not end up in a city where roots and insects live. The plot fully unfolds in a psychiatric clinic (except for the last two chapters, where Fran is discharged home under the supervision of her aunt), and strange visual images are just cautious hints of the real mental state of a poor girl whose schizophrenia is mercilessly and unsuccessfully quenched with drugs. This is a gloomy and groovy horror game every fan of the genre must play! Are you into this as much as Fran?
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