Déraciné
PSVR
True, only the maddest of hatters could have dreamed up Dark Souls. But we can’t help but feel that Hidetaka Miyazaki has taken a millinery obsession too far in Déraciné. We’ve lost count of the amount of bonnets and fedoras we’ve plucked from heads in this VR adventure. It’s not the puzzles that stump us, despite their fuzzy logic – no, it’s the hats, which regularly conceal crucial pointers. It’s to FromSoftware’s credit that we’re willing to keep lifting
Déraciné’s bewildering brims in pursuit of answers: this meditation on humanity’s obsession with the past is one of the most sophisticated VR stories to date.
You play an invisible faerie who moves through different ‘epochs’ of time. The echoing halls of the grand Gothic house you roam are home to a genteel, glassyeyed group of orphans. Soon you strike up an unlikely friendship, and the children are curiously likeable despite their uncanny expressions. Nils is the bookworm of the gang; excitable Rozsa sports ribbons in her hair and a mysterious bandage on her leg.
Narrative details are meted out in fragments: strange portents glimpsed in item descriptions, names scrawled on the backs of photographs or sighted in dusty library corners. Despite a slow first half, things fall into place beautifully in the second. It’s exactly the sort of selfassembly fairytale we’ve come to expect from its creator – elegant, wistful, and in some cases terrifying.
The mechanics of piecing it all together, however, are unenjoyable. The majority of the game is spent using Move controllers to teleport to predetermined spots throughout the house, trying to figure out which objects are relevant to this particular epoch’s puzzles. Playing a vague point-and-click-style puzzler in a huge mansion you must navigate step by step is as irritating as it sounds. Early on, the game introduces a mechanic for blocking off certain areas. Later, however, it’s either not used enough, leaving you wandering useless hallways none the wiser – or worse, is undermined entirely.
Most egregious of all is that Déraciné too often turns into a tedious game of hunt the sparkle, as you grope awkwardly around bodies to find the twinkle that triggers conversation audio. Early on, characters might only contain one sparkle, but later there’ll inexplicably be multiple concealed about their person – most likely under their headwear. Miss one, and you’ll find yourself at a loss for hours. This is an absolutely Miyazakian narrative deftly woven, with a particularly brilliant conclusion. Mechanically, however, it’s pedestrian and woefully communicated. What a pity Déraciné doesn’t have a little more finesse up its sleeve – or, indeed, under its hats.