Survival Terra?
Toward the Terra is a pretty epic space drama, right? It's got enough elements to be appealing across various types of fans. Space geeks get their political opera, yaoi fangirls get their slash, serial killers get their Tony, and everybody loves Keith Anyan. Because it has so many facets it has the potential to have a lot of spinoff focuses (Keith of the Blue Light for one) that Terra probably didn't make enough money to exploit.

One genre not represented in Terra is horror. Yes, Manga Jomy is scary as hell, but they don't really go anywhere with it. I'm not talking American slasher film horror, I'm talking Silent Hill psychological horror. There's a plethora of content that can be adapted to that medium - game or film or manga (I frequently wonder about my fandoms crossing genres and this often involves crossing platforms as well). Lately I've been considering this two part video game series with a simultaneous release - Terra, Jomy Side and Keith Side. I haven't given Jomy Side much thought besides HOLY SHIT LEO JOINED YOUR PARTY AND HE'S FUCKING CUTE LIKE THE FIST OF THE NORTH STAR, but I've practically got a script in my head for Keith Side.

I've been thinking it over constantly, and as much as I want a Keith dating sim, it would be really interesting to have an almost survival horror take on the story. It's Terra, but it's Terra with an emphasis on the things the manga and anime take for granted as frightening. The plot is exactly the same, but you almost wouldn't recognize it.

Humans have colonized the far reaches of space without the threat of a foreign race appearing. There's tension with the SD system and quiet unrest concerning the methodology, so there's no surprise when people start disappearing after their adulthood exams (or even later). In the military there are bogeyman stories about creatures called M who have begun appearing in the guise of humans. At this point in Terra's plot there's so little information available to anyone but those in the upper echelons of science that nobody knows what M actually are, and rumours of course spread. Without the benefit of Jomy or Blue's perspective, the average human in the Terra universe would consider such a creature a monster. As the plot starts to unfold there's the main focus of the Mu being a threat to security and stability, but there's also the horror of what they can do to a person's heart and mind with only a thought.

Who wants to investigate into the reaches of space when there are monsters in human skin waiting to pry open your heart when you're alone, figuratively and maybe even literally? A survival horror game involving the investigation of various Mu related sites, like the abandoned derelict ships in Sylvester 7's orbit or the remains of the Nazca settlement or the tunnel leading to Terras 5 would scare the crap out of me, especially since the Mu have those scary ass LOOK YOU'RE DROWNING illusions. So much untapped potential I would love to develop had I any programming talent to speak of.

Anyway, if you managed to make a survival horror out of Keith's game, it would be fine to have sort of an action game counterpart in Jomy's. Either way the boss battle is layed out the same way.

Keith vs. Jomy, whether survival horror or action boss battle, would be scary as balls, especially for a first encounter when you don't "know" the enemy. The setting: almost completely dark room. If you're playing as Jomy this shouldn't be a problem since some kind of extra sense systems would be activated and available to the player at all times (lol Mu), except that Keith is awesome and can block out his heart. So Keith will show up at a faint blip on the 'radar'. And he's fucking immune to psychic attacks, motherfucker. So you'd have to do it the hard way and shave his life down gradually with physical attacks (including chucking objects at him with YOUR MIND). It doesn't sound hard until you factor in Keith's intense military training - if he can somehow get a hold of you you're fucked. Jomy would only be able to take a couple of hits from Keith before dying.

Now if you're playing as Keith you've got the opposite problem - can't see shit, captain, and there are knives flying at you. You can stay protected by moving quickly and quietly, but it's almost a matter of luck in finding Jomy - except the faint, faint blue lights the instant he uses his abilities. Good thing you can kill him in two hits because you're fucking Keith Anyan and you stab people in the throat.

Um, what was I talking about?



In summary, yes, I am excited about Dead Space.